Australia’s music industry is playing its part in local flood-relief efforts, with an all-star concert said to be taking shape.
A major benefit concert will be announced shortly, funds from which will support the flood-stricken state of Queensland. Frontier Touring Company managing director Michael Gudinski is driving the concert and as of Monday morning was “working out details” of the show, a well-placed source tells Billboard.biz.
The concert could provide a platform for Powderfinger to make a brief and timely return from retirement. Although they won’t be drawn on the speculation, the homegrown five-piece was thrust firmly into the frame when independent state member of parliament Rob Messenger called on them to reunite. “This is a once-in-hundred-year natural disaster. Powderfinger is Queensland music,” he said. “Queensland needs them right now.”
If Gudinski and his partners pull it off, it will be the third major fundraising concert of its kind in just six years following the January 2005 WaveAid show in Sydney and the 2009 Sound Relief spectacle in Sydney and Melbourne.
Meanwhile, a handful of Australian musicians were front and center in a telethon which raised more than $10 million over the weekend. The likes of Tina Arena, Kasey Chambers, Troy Cassar-Daly and the Veronicas lent their support to the free-to-air Nine Network fund-raiser.
The floods have taken 11 lives and authorities are warning the worst may yet come. An area the size of France and Germany has been swamped by the floodwaters, affecting an estimated 200,000 Queenslanders and causing more than $5 billion in damages and up to $9 billion in lost production. State Premier Anna Bligh last Thursday described the state’s ongoing deluge as a disaster for on an “unprecedented scale.”