I’ve only just caught up with what down at the ARIAs last night. I have a Wednesday night date at the local RSL with the members of my trivia team Fusion, so I caught it on the DVR today.
Overall I enjoyed this year’s ceremony a lot more than last year’s. It was a joy to watch Neil Finn and Paul Kelly performing together, to be reminded of how good young things like Five Seconds of Summer and Sheppard are in the live arena, and to see Molly Meldrum and Countdown take their rightful place in the Hall of Fame. Chet Faker’s performance was also spellbindingly good. I like to think those squealing 5SOS and 1D fans in the front learned a few things watching this man play. Ditto Dan Sultan.
But I have to wonder, why do we insist on fawning over the international celebrities? Why do we hype up Katy Perry presenting an award, and give One Direction a plum spot on the running time? I’m probably more of a 1D fan than a woman in her mid-thirties should be, but it still felt a little odd to me. A show like last night reinforced yet again that Australia has such a rich, diverse array of talent. So why don’t organisers focus on that? It’s not like the addition of these big-name stars seemed to do much for the ratings after all.
Thoughts?