It’s been an age since we’ve seen them but Powderfinger is finally returning for a national tour.
The legendary rock band will perform around Australia from September 2027, with the announcement on Friday sending fans into a frenzy after days of cryptic teasers.
”Just want to say a massive thank you to these five blokes for making much happiness for sooooo many people today. It’s been a long wait, but there was always hope,” said one fan online.
“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry! All my dreams have come true,” said another.
Starting up in Brisbane in 1989, Powderfinger is one of Australia’s most successful rock bands, with five albums topping the ARIA Charts and 18 ARIA awards over 21 years of recording and touring.
Their best known songs are firm favourites in the Australian songbook, including My Happiness, Lost and Running, Sunsets, and (Baby I’ve Got You) On My Mind.
But they haven’t performed live since 2010, with the exception of a one-off charity performance during COVID when the band played in isolation from each other.
Band members Bernard Fanning, Darren Middleton, Ian Haug, John Collins and Jon Coghill announced the national tour via an Instagram video on Friday morning, following a mysterious billboard and social media campaign across Australia.
“We always said that if we were going to get back together to do some shows you’d be the first to know, and you’re the first to know,” said frontman Bernard Fanning.
“We’re going to build something pretty special just for you guys … we will see you from the stage,” said guitarist Darren Middleton.
People have been encouraged to join the band’s fan club, with more information to be released at 6am on Monday.
The teaser campaign for the reunion tour started earlier in the week with billboards in capital cities featuring grids of numbers and letters, which could be decoded as references to the band’s discography and the date of their final live show in Brisbane in 2010.
The band has been vocal about AI companies stealing the copyrighted work of Australian artists, and guitarist Ian Haug promised in a social media post that no AI would be used in Powderfinger’s reunion performances.
The former booker at the Brisbane venue where Powderfinger played some of their earliest gigs, Andrea Smith, said the band started off playing a 200-capacity room at the Orient Hotel in 1990 on a night where punters could see five bands for five dollars.
Within a short time they were getting lines around the block, and two years later they’d made the big time, Smith told AAP.
“Obviously lots of passion, heaps of enthusiasm, and you could see that there was a seed of something there,” she said.
The music mentor and educator believes Powderfinger’s enduring success is not only down to their songs, but also who they are.
“It’s the way they treat people, there’s a love for the band, but there’s also this massive respect from the band to the fans,” said Smith.
Powderfinger has stood the test of time, according to veteran music critic and novelist Noel Mengel.
“Good songs and good performances don’t fade, and the essential thing about music to me is it’s so heavily linked in with memory, and people remember them very fondly,” he told AAP.
He recalls the long road to the band’s peak years in the 2000s, saying Powderfinger always had a long-term plan.
“I remember asking John Collins what was the worst early time? And it was going to Geelong and playing to 20 people or something, when they were young and enthusiastic enough to do that … all those bands from Brisbane did that, most of it in the car or the Tarago van.”
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