FED: Sun sets on Powderfinger's 21-year career

AAP General News (Australia)
04-09-2010
FED: Sun sets on Powderfinger's 21-year career

By Alyssa Braithwaite, National Entertainment Writer

SYDNEY, April 9 AAP - After more than 20 years together, seven studio albums and 16
ARIA awards, Aussie rock band Powderfinger will call it quits following a national farewell
tour later this year.

The Brisbane five-piece said their Sunsets tour in September and October would be their
biggest to date, and their last.

"We have decided after much deliberation and agonising that after this final tour we
will call it a day as a recording and touring band," singer Bernard Fanning announced
at a press conference in Sydney on Friday morning.

"After a career that has lasted for over 20 years, seven studio albums, a live album,
two DVDs, 30-odd video clips, around 1,000 shows, 16 ARIA Awards and hundreds of thousands
of kilometres travelled around the globe on local, national and world tours, we believe
that the time has come to call an end to what we think has been an extremely privileged
and rewarding run."

The Sunsets tour will take in 21 cities in every state and territory over a seven-week period.

Powderfinger will be supported by Jet on all but three of the concerts, with The Vines
taking on support duties on the other dates.

Fanning said the band would play songs from each of their seven studio albums on the
Sunsets tour, which is their first major national outing since the Across The Great Divide
tour with Silverchair almost three years ago.

He said the tour would be a celebration of their years in the business.

"We wanted to make this tour as much fun as possible, because we don't want it to be
a big nostalgic sentimental tear-fest," Fanning said.

"It's more to celebrate what we've done and to say thanks to people as we go around Australia."

Powderfinger released their most recent album, Golden Rule, in 2009, which debuted
at number one on the ARIA charts.

It is the last album of new material the band will release, although their contract
with Universal Music provides for a greatest hits collection in the future.

"With the completion of our last album, Golden Rule, we feel that we have said all
that we want to say as a musical group," Fanning said.

"We firmly believe that it is our most complete and satisfying album and can't think
of a better way to farewell our fans than with music that we all believe in and also with,
hopefully, our best tour to date."

Rumours that the band were breaking up have dogged Powderfinger for years, but Fanning
said the decision was only made after their run of summer festival shows.

Fanning and bandmates Jon Coghill, John Collins, Ian Haug and Darren Middleton will
all take some time off after the tour wraps, before pursuing solo interests inside and
outside the music industry.

Middleton said he would keep making music, while Fanning plans to release another solo
album in the future.

"Maybe the end of next year I'll probably start thinking about it," Fanning said.

"I want to have a break for a while and just hang out."

Tickets for Sunsets - The Farewell Tour go on sale at 9am on April 30.

On the tour, Powderfinger will partner with the Yalari group, which supports education
for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from rural and remote areas.

AAP acb/nf/goc/de

KEYWORD: POWDERFINGER WRAP (WITH PIX/VIDEO/GRAPHIC/FACTBOX)

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