Welcome to the New Year’s Eve we all missed: NYE TV wrap

The ABC asked one thing of its New Year’s Eve viewers: put your party shoes on, leave your grumpy hat in the cupboard, keep an open mind – and let the music carry you along.

And it worked, if you met your half of the bargain.

The ABC’s New Year broadcast hosts: Zan Rowe, Charlie Pickering and Concetta Caristo.Credit: ABC

This was, in the main, a belter of a show – a blend of familiar faces and some newish-to-unknown ones, and the music traversed the genre factory, ensuring that there was something for everybody. That means, of course, there was also something else for everybody to complain about, but that’s the essential point with this show. Don’t like this act? Sure, but hang about. There’ll be something along for you any minute.

That’s the ABC’s half of the bargain – and they delivered on it.

For every hipster turning their nose up at Harry Connick Jnr’s slick schtick, there were middle-aged folks scratching their heads over Angie McMahon and Grent Perez, and someone out bush wondering what on earth was going on with Confidence Man. (What on earth was going on with Confidence Man? Read on.)

The mystery of the Confidence Man.Credit: ABC

All legitimate perspectives, and if you can resolve this conundrum for the ABC producers, please give them a tinkle – you’re a genius. This show has to appeal to everyone from Cunnamulla to Crows Nest to Collingwood, and to judge this show by that yardstick, I reckon this was close to the best of the 11 ABC NYE broadcasts I’ve reviewed.

The first was exactly 10 years ago, New Year’s Eve 2013 when the ABC first took over the Sydney shindig from Nine and delivered one of the worst live TV broadcasts of the age. An electrifying train wreck. That disaster ended with questions being asked in parliament, and Aunty has been terrified of repeating the catastrophe ever since.

Instead, they have settled on a formula of handing most of the night over to the music, with the hosts – Charlie Pickering and Zan Rowe returning, with the addition of Triple J’s exuberant Concetta Caristo – doing mostly charming, occasionally clunky link work.

As the night unfolded, they had it easy – handing off from one performer to another in a seamless show of deft dancing across genres (and across those pesky, argumentative demographics.)

Casey Donovan’s New Year’s Eve treat.Credit: ABC

Casey Donovan, the woman they call (rightly) the Queen of New Year’s Eve, was the constant throughout – opening in subdued form with a two-song Burt Bacharach tribute (Alfie, What The World Needs Now); coming back later for Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car; then finally being plugged into her sparkle machine for a belting cover of the ultimate banger, ABBA’s Gimme Gimme Gimme mashed with Madonna’s Hung Up (a kind of reverse mash-up of Madonna’s original mix).

Those watching at home may have missed the in-person spectacular that was Sydney Harbour (pictured), but they were still rewarded.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

Donovan’s performances were scattered across a night that began with a killer set from Arnhem Land’s King Stingray – Show Me The Way, and their Like A Version take on Coldplay’s Yellow.

Then Australia met Grentperez – introduced literally in his childhood bedroom in the western suburbs of Sydney, where he became a rather quirky YouTube star with a voice and manner that suggests the music progeny of two Michaels – Buble and Jackson.

Perez introduced himself aptly: “For those of you who might have missed that video or not know who I am…”

He had that bit right, but he carried off a tough national debut with aplomb, charming his way through originals (Cherry Wine) and covers (Harry Styles’ Music For A Sushi Restaurant and Buble’s Sway).

Angie McMahon on the ABC’s broadcast.Credit: ABC

Next up: Melbourne’s Angie McMahon, tasked with one of the toughest asks in music: covering Nothing Compares 2 U, in the style of the late Sinead O’Connor. She followed up with originals Pasta and Letting Go, almost whispering in between those two songs a message: “Palestinians should be free.” It was so low-key as to be more a whisper than a wild protest.

From not-the-usual-suspects to very much the old and faithful, Mark Seymour proved age shall not weary him at 67, nor his anthem Throw Your Arms Around Me and the touching The Whole World Is Dreaming, a duet with his daughter Eva.

Genesis Owusu is charisma on legs, and rolled through a three-song set (when one of them, Gold Chains, has the Barack Obama seal of approval on his end-of-year music list from 2021, you can safely assume the swagger is earned. And from left field, he served upon Devo’s 1980 hit Whip It Good.

You could hear heads being scratched when Brisbane dance crew Confidence Man took the stage – for the uninitiated, like me, I can only suggest watching the video and checking their top-shelf festival pedigree – but the clue is in their stage names. Janet Planet and Sugar Bones want you to have fun, and the 90s-club-meets-Blue-Light-disco vibe of the thing is part of that plan. They are in on the joke. You can relax and enjoy it.

Then the race was on to the big bang.

There was genuine superstar power with Harry Connick Jnr, and the man who sang the soundtrack to the most famous New Year’s Eve scene in movies – When Harry Met Sally – was equipped for the occasion, even singing his own song What Are You Doing On New Year’s Eve?

Harry Connick Jnr crooning his way to 2024.Credit: ABC

As it turned out, what we were doing was waiting for an epic run towards midnight with the return of Casey Donovan – this time knocking the socks off a trio of Tina Turner songs (What’s Love Got To Do With It, Private Dancer and Simply The Best).

And then came an eight-song romp from a luminous Jessica Mauboy, who barely paused for breath dancing through Can I Get A Moment?, Flashback, Give You Love, Little Things, Pop A Bottle (Fill Me Up), Mariah Carey’s Fantasy, Dance The Night and Young Hearts Run Free. She could have lit the harbour with her smile.

Then it was time for the real stars of the show.

My review of the fireworks: they went bang. Bang. Bang.

And so did this show.

If you didn’t sing and dance at least once, the problem was you, not the ABC.

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