All the 2022 ARIA Award highlights... and lowlights

What on earth happened at this year’s shambolic ARIA Awards? The ceremony frequently turned into car-crash television.

The 2022 ARIA Awards took place at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion on Thursday night, with Aussie music legend Natalie Imbruglia taking on hosting duties this year.

But it was a surprisingly shambolic ceremony - even by ARIAs standards - with presenters missing their cues and wandering off stage before their duties are finished, as the show’s two backstage hosts floundered.

Two of the night's biggest awards were dispensed with right off the bat, with Tones And I taking home Song of the Year for her hit Cloudy Day, while Baker Boy won Album of the Year for his 2021 debut Gela.

Later in the night, he also won the final award: Solo artist of the year, a new gender-neutral category replacing the Best Male and Best Female artist categories.

Tones And I won the first televised award.

Amyl and the Sniffers took out the Best Group award - they’d previously won the award for Best Rock Album in the pre-televised awards.

But the night seemed poorly produced at times, with presenters looking like deer in the headlights as they struggled to present awards and fill dead air.

The worst offenders were backstage hosts Christian Wilkins and Lucinda Froomes, who appeared frequently throughout the night but seemed to have no idea what had been happening on-stage. The pair also regularly flubbed the names of the albums that were being awarded.

Frequent presenters Lucinda Froomes and Christian Wilkins struggled.

“The best hard rock award went to The Chats for F**k You,” Froomes announced, letting an uncensored F-bomb slip on channel Nine at around 8:15pm. (In fact, The Chats’ album is called Get F**ed.)

“I’m very excited for the next segment, because it’s the one and only...” she said, before appearing to forget who she was introducing.
“...we will see you after the break.”

During the break, those watching wondered what on earth was going on:

Trainwreck #arias

— BangBang (@BangingBangbang) November 24, 2022

Geez the #arias are cooked!

— Killa5 (@killafive) November 24, 2022

The #ARIAs coverage is… struggling 😳

— Isobel Roe (@isobelroe) November 24, 2022

Wouldn’t you at least make sure the hosts know how to pronounce the names of artists/albums? #arias

— Michael Hartt (@whatamindblast) November 24, 2022

Broadcast and production is awful #ARIAs

— Steven Baskett (@StevenBaskett2) November 24, 2022

What the is with the #ARIAs?! Worst production ever! It’s NATALIE not Natlie, definitely run by unsupervised school children

— Mimi Florence (@mimiflorence23) November 24, 2022

Couldn’t Channel 9 afford an auto cue #arias

— mark (@voodoorock) November 24, 2022

Geez these #arias hosts are bloody awful. Talking over each other, awkward dead air and talking during fade transitions. Amateur hour.

— Pat / TripppAU (@TripppAU) November 24, 2022

Still, shout-out to the very animated lady behind them - maybe she can host next year?

Shoutout to the lady in the background on the right who is living her best life. They’re gonna have to cut her off soon but thats okay #ARIAspic.twitter.com/Qf2SOv2gfC

— 𝐃𝐲𝐥𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐰𝐬 (@DylanMatthews91) November 24, 2022

The clangers continued as the duo returned throughout the night to run viewers through the awards given in the pre-televised ceremony.

“The Best Adult Contemporary Adult album went to Julia Jacklin for Pre-Release,” Froomes announced. Not quite - it’s actually called Pre-Pleasure.

“Best Country Album went to Casey Barnes for Light Up,” said Wilkins. He was at least a bit closer - that one’s actually called Light It Up.

#ARIAs ..best adult contemporary album "Julia Jacklin - Pre Release" ..just says it all about sh- house this production has been!

— Leon (@LeonOnTheRadio) November 24, 2022

have those other presenters ever got a name of the album right, this is such a shit show i love it #ARIAs

— lauren (@laurensm1ith) November 24, 2022

Elsewhere, ahead of an... interesting musical tribute to the late Aussie icon Olivia Newton-John, ONJ’s daughter Chloe Lattanzi appeared with a specially recorded message for the ARIAs audience.

Lattanzi choked back tears as she thanked those in Australia for their support since her mother’s death from cancer back in August.

Chloe Lattanzi pays tribute to her mum.

“Thank you so much for doing this beautiful tribute to my mum. She was so grateful and so moved by all of the support that she received from Australia during her cancer battle... Excuse me,’ Lattanzi said, as she momentarily lost her composure.

“I ask that you continue to remember my mum and honouring her by supporting the Olivia Newton John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre so that my mum’s dream can come true: A world without cancer. Please enjoy the night, live it up, have fun, enjoy the tribute and enjoy life like my mum did.”

The latter part of the ceremony was then given over to tributes to the Australian musical icons we’ve lost over the past 12 months.

First up was Indigenous singer-songwriter Archie Roach, who died in August aged 66. Budjerah, Jessica Mauboy and Thelma Plum united for a moving performance in tribute to one of Australia’s greats.

Then it was time to pay tribute to The Seekers singer Judith Durham, who died in August aged 79, with Casey Donovan and Dami Im both in fine voice for two of the group’s biggest hits.

Then it was time for the much-anticipated ONJ tribute. Natalie Imbruglia started with Hopelessly Devoted To You, before singer Kye delivered just a few bars of Livvie’s disco hit Xanadu.

Then it was on to Tones and I and Peking Duk, who performed a yodel-heavy, karaoke-style cover of the Grease classic You’re The One That I Want to close the show.

Like just about everything tonight, it was more than a bit chaotic and shambolic. As one viewer tweeted: Olivia deserved better.

Originally published as All the 2022 ARIA Award highlights... and lowlights