Bernard Fanning and Ocean Alley set to headline 6000-capacity gigs in Sydney

Live music fans, raise your lighters: arena rock is returning to Sydney.

Over six months since the COVID pandemic forced the closure of concert venues and decimated Australia's live music scene, Qudos Bank Arena will host two gigs with a capacity of just over 6000, the largest indoor music events to be held in Australia since March.

Bernard Fanning will headline Sydney's biggest indoor music gig since the pandemic.Credit: Cybele Malinowski

The shows, part of the Great Southern Nights series of COVID-safe gigs which launched this week, will feature Ocean Alley, Jack River, Ruby Fields and Jack Botts on November 28, and Bernard Fanning, Matt Corby and Merci, Mercy on December 5.

The gigs were jointly organised by promoters TEG and Live Nation, with support from the NSW state government's tourism and major events agency Destination NSW.

Fanning, who calls 2020 the toughest year in a music career spanning over 30, says the government's involvement is crucial.

"It's imperative the government's behind it because the music industry has been given zero support," he says, citing a lack of federal rescue funding and the fact contractors, who make up a large proportion of the music industry's workforce, were ineligible for JobKeeper.

"It's incumbent on all governments to get behind the arts, because you can't spout the rhetoric that this is all about the economy and then ignore the contribution the arts community makes to the economy."

Fanning says the main motivation around the gigs is to provide work for music industry workers whose lives were upended by COVID and to rebuild confidence around attending mass live gigs.

"I think people are absolutely peaking to go out and do stuff with other people, but it needs to be proved to be safe. That's the idea with these shows, to give people the confidence to go out and know that it's going to be OK."

In line with ongoing guidelines the gigs will be seated and socially-distanced, utilising just part of the venue's usual 21,000 capacity. They will also employ rapid contract tracing and will host increased amenities.

Musician Jack River.Credit: Daphne Nguyen

Jack River, real name Holly Rankin, says the chance to play in front of 6000 gig-goers for the first time since February trumps any discomfort caused by the strict new performing environment.

"We're used to people up against each other and sweating and that creates a certain energy to feed off when you're playing. But to be able to play a sit-down gig now is so massive, I don't care how it's done. It will feel amazing to actually be in the room with people again," she says.

The Mollymook-based musician – who has used the live shutdown period to pursue a law degree ("It's to inform my music so I can speak to my audience and help represent their views," she says) – says she just wants "to feel connected again".

"We've lived in such a different world for six months; I don't know what it'll be like to be on a stage and [fans] don't know what it'll be like to be in an audience. We're in new territory."

Fanning agrees. "Given the circumstances we're in around the world, there's a spirit of cooperation that's necessary that hasn't really existed in my lifetime, where people do have to adhere to strict rules so that things like this can happen," he says.

"There's all those myths about rock 'n' roll being about abandon that are tempered by these circumstances, but it shouldn't make any difference to the actual show."

Plus, 6000 fans offers the opportunity for an arena singalong for the first time in months.

"I don't know if I've got any stadium anthems," Fanning, the humble author of My Happiness, says with a laugh. "I mean, it'll be stuff from right across my career we'll be playing so there's always the chance."

Tickets for the gigs go on sale on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, at 10am at ticketek.com.au.