Powderfinger to reform for ‘one night lonely’ YouTube fundraiser

A decade after its final run of concerts, the Brisbane rock band will reform for a live-streamed remote gig to raise funds for charity.

Brisbane rock band Powderfinger, which is reforming for one night only to be live-streamed via YouTube on Saturday May 23 2020 to raise funds for Beyond Blue and Support Act.

A decade after its final run of concerts, Brisbane rock band Powderfinger will reform for a one-off live-streamed performance to raise funds for Beyond Blue and music industry charity Support Act.

On Saturday May 23, the five band members will perform a medley of greatest hits from their respective home studios for a YouTube event dubbed One Night Lonely.

“The five of us have been meeting regularly over the past few months to organise some Odyssey Number Five anniversary releases,” said the band in the statement, referring to its multi-platinum-selling fourth album, released in 2000, which contained hit songs such as My Happiness, These Days and My Kind of Scene.

“The idea came up of playing together again in this unusual format which we all thought would be fun. The past few months has been a very strange time for us all and difficult days for many. We really just want to bring a smile to some people’s faces and along the way raise some funds to help our music industry mates and people who are currently experiencing mental health issues.”

The occasion will mark the first time that the five musicians – singer Bernard Fanning, guitarists Ian Haug and Darren Middleton, bassist John Collins and drummer Jon Coghill – have performed together since announcing the decision to end the band in April 2010, followed by a national tour that ended on November 13 2010 at the Brisbane Riverstage.

At Splendour in the Grass festival near Byron Bay in 2017, four members – minus Coghill – performed during Fanning’s solo set, where together they ran through hits such as (Baby I Got You) On My Mind and These Days.

This time, though, they’re all in, a fact which the band hinted at in a Facebook post on Wednesday night containing audio from a phone call between the singer and drummer.

“Mate, have you heard anything about the band getting back together?” Coghill asked Fanning. “Apparently someone’s gone and changed the photo on our Facebook page and all the media have gone crazy, but I didn’t even know we had a Facebook page. Well, if you hear anything, give me a yell, because I’ve got to practise.”

“Yeah no worries – it won’t be like last time,” said Fanning.

Between 1989 and 2010, Powderfinger released seven albums – five of which hit No 1 on the ARIA chart – and amassed 18 ARIA Awards from 47 nominations. Its songs appeared in triple j’s Hottest 100 music poll on 22 occasions, including two No 1 spots for These Days (1999) and My Happiness (2000).

One Night Lonely aims to raise funds for Support Act, which provides crisis relief, mental health and wellbeing services to Australia’s music industry community and has been inundated with requests recently from artists, crew and music workers who have been severely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

As well, the concert is a fundraiser for Beyond Blue, provides information and support to help Australians achieve their best possible mental health, whatever their age and wherever they live. In the past four weeks, Beyond Blue has experienced a 59 per cent increase in the number of people contacting its support services compared to the same period last year.