Australasia News: P!NK Breaks More Records; Tame Impala’s Jodie Regan Honored; NZ: Politician Criticized For Song Use

AUSTRALIA

P!NK Breaks Australasian Records

The Australian and New Zealand leg of P!NK’s “Summer Carnival Tour” – her first upgrade to stadiums – came close to reaching 1 million tickets sold by the time it wrapped March 24 in the North Queensland city of Townsville.

That puts it in the all-time Top 3 tours alongside Ed Sheeran and Dire Straits and marks the biggest sales by a female headliner, with the 20 dates the most stadium shows by any artist in the region on a single tour.

It lifts the singer’s tally to more than 3.1 million over six tours, “the largest career ticket sales ever achieved by any international performer in Australia and New Zealand,” LN Australasia said.

After breaking concert attendances at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium (where at the first show a fan went into labor), Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium and Auckland’s Eden Park, the Townsville show drew 65,000 to the Queensland Country Bank Stadium over two nights and generated A$50 million ($32.59 million) to the local economy, city authorities said, with 20,000 fans visiting from outside.

Live Nation and Sony Music Australia threw an event in Sydney to present her with a plaque for her achievements.

A custom art piece from First Nations artist Holly Sanders, which signified P!NK’s connection to Australia and her life as a mother, was also presented to the record-breaking performer.

Said Live Nation Australasia chairman Michael Coppel, who helmed her 200 dates since 2004, “P!NK is one of the most amazing live performers to ever walk onto the stage.
“There is a palpable mutual love affair between the Australasian audience that love
seeing her perform live, and an artist who clearly loves being here.”

Tame Impala’s Jodie Regan Honored

The Association Of Artist Managers will honor Jodie Regan with the legacy gong at its May 1 awards in Sydney.

She has represented Tame Impala, Pond and Haiku Hands since 2004 through her Perth-based company Spinning Top.

“I certainly don’t do what I do for the recognition,” Regan said. “But it feels bloody great to know that I could inspire a younger generation of Australian women to break into spaces that don’t look like they’re for us.”

Rabbits Eat Lettuce Tests Pills

Rabbits Eat Lettuce becomes the first festival in Queensland to introduce pill testing after the state allowed it in February 2023.

The event, over the Easter long weekend in Elbow Valley, made news 2019 when two patrons died in their tent with a cocktail of drugs in their system, the coroner found.

So far only the Australian Capital Territory allows pill-testing although Victoria is considering it.

Marvel Stadium Completes $225M Upgrade

The A$225 million ($146.8million) precinct upgrade at Melbourne’s 52,000-seat Marvel Stadium is completed, with two new plazas to turn it into a daily community meeting place.

City Edge has a concourse with consolidated ticketing, merchandising and food and beverage offerings, with greater weather protection, and new function rooms, lifts and escalators.

Stadium Square will have community events and markets and is a gathering place for fans with permanent bars and restaurants.

NEW ZEALAND

Party Leader In Hot Water Over Song Use

Seven years after the National Party was fined NZ$225,000 ($134,744) for using a sound-
alike of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” for a 2014 election ad, another New Zealand politician was in hot water for unauthorised use of a song at rallies.

This time, the song involved was Chumbawamba’s 1997 hit “Tubthumping” whose lines “I get knocked down, but I get up again / You are never gonna keep me down,” made it popular at sports events.

Winston Peters, leader of New Zealand First, a populist and nationalist party, was expected to receive a cease and desist letter from the furious band’s publisher, but Peters remained unrepentant.

On the morning after the story broke, he arrived at Parliament and walked the corridors grinning with the song blaring out of his cell phone.