Four million people signed up to get Australia's half a million available Taylor Swift tickets. There was bound to be heartbreak... This and more from IA's music man David Kowalski.
BIG FUSS and “unprecedented” fervour surrounded the purchasing of tickets to Taylor Swift’s "Eras tour" this week. So much so that we even saw respected Australian psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg giving advice on how to soothe children who missed out!
If not directly experienced, most of us have heard stories about hours of precious time sucked away while waiting on the Ticketmaster app to try and score concert tickets.
That said, the number of people who have said to me, “What’s so special about Taylor Swift, anyway?” As though this hysteria is a new phenomenon.
Paul Simon said it best in his song 'The Boy In The Bubble':
“Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts.”
Remember Beatlemania in the 1960s? ABBA fever in the 1970s? Madonna-mad fans in the 1980s? The major difference is that in order to get prime seats to those shows, people would sleep out on the street for days in advance to be first in line to get tickets. Now, there’s an automated process that keeps kids off the streets.
Not everyone was going to be happy. Clearly, those who missed out weren’t. Is this a new thing, though? Hardly. It also appears that satisfying demand isn't a high priority either. Gone are the days when major artists would just play 20 dates in one place, as Dire Straits did when the group finished its "Brothers in Arms World Tour" at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in 1986.
As it stands, Swift’s seven dates in Australia will likely see her play to more than 600,000 people.
Demand was so high Tay Tay could rent beachfront property in Sydney and play six months' worth of dates in Australia! Fans will just have to make do with what they get.
THE OTHER SIDE OF SILVERCHAIR
In other news, there was an announcement that drummer Ben Gillies and bassist Chris Joannou, formerly of Silverchair, are about to release a book telling "their side of the story".
Of course, many fans are outraged, wondering why the pair couldn’t reconcile long enough with frontman Daniel Johns in order to write the book together.
My big question is, why wouldn’t they take an opportunity to tell their side of the story? Johns has used the spotlight plenty to "reflect" on his former bandmates: in a 2022 interview with The Project and in a major podcast series, Who Is Daniel Johns? The podcast featured no input from Gillies and Joannou, and they have remained respectfully silent in the press in response to John’s claims…
…until now.
Most rock band memoirs tend to be an exercise in mud-slinging — why should this be any different?
Silverchair’s rise to fame, when the average age of the band members was 14, is an incredible story. The drama about how the wheels fell off at the height of that fame is also compelling. It remains to be seen whether the two quiet members of the band get loud in recalling their time in the limelight.
GETTING INTO A 'PRIVATE FUNCTION'
The incredible track “I Dunno What I’m Doing Anymore” by Melbourne punk band Private Function recently came across my soundscape.
The band members look and sound like they’ve just downed tools on a building site, then stopped by a recording studio to lay down a track on their way to the pub. The fact that the song is only 70 seconds long suggests they were in a particular hurry to get into the beers.
This is pure rock and roll — short, fast and loud.
NOTHING SO COOL AS A 'SOPHISTICATED DINGO'
Melbourne indie rockers with a keen observational eye, Sophisticated Dingo, have an ambiguous name. It suggests the band may be like the humble Aussie native canine: a bit feral. Not so.
The two-piece band has borrowed its format from The Black Keys and Royal Blood but cut through with a stronger sense of melody and fun than the aforementioned acts.
'Radio On' is a tune for shunting down the windows and turning up the volume on a long, hot summer road trip to somewhere more exciting than where you are right now.
Watch out for this Dingo!
RIDING IN LAURAN HIBBERD'S 'HONDA CIVIC'
Vocal powerhouse from the UK's Isle of Wight Lauran Hibberd returns with a track from what seems like a growing catalogue of “bad boyfriend” songs.
This one shows off some slick martial arts moves in the video (although Hibberd makes it clear that no one was actually hurt during the making of this clip) supported by a punchy (no pun intended) power-pop tune that is screaming out for radio airtime.
Hibberd will be playing in Australia in November 2023 with American melodic-punks All Time Low and Mayday Parade
LISTEN TO THIS WEEKS SPECIALLY CURATED PLAYLIST BELOW:
David Kowalski is a writer, musician, educator, sound engineer and podcaster. His podcasts 'The Sound and the Fury Podcast' and 'Audio Cumulus' can be heard exclusively here. You can follow David on Twitter @sound_fury_pod.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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