INXS Perform At Grand Final

by Johnson Leung reporting for AFANA in Melbourne

Legendary Australian band INXS and American singer James McKenna are leading the entertainment line-up for the AFL Grand Final between Collingwood and St Kilda at the MCG. INXS will perform three classic hits, under a deal struck between the AFL and beer brand Carlton Draught, while McKenna will perform Last One Standing as the Premiers takes their victory lap, before the traditional blaring of the Queen classic We Are the Champions.

INXS members told reporters at the MCG that the band will kick off pre-match entertainment with a "bit of a surprise" followed by a string of hits. Saxophonist Kirk Pengilly, who grew up in Melbourne and is a Hawthorn fan, joked that "no-one's parachuting down or anything kind of out there". The six band members, including Canadian frontman JD Fortune, were clearly pumped about their gig before a 100,000 strong crowd. "It's just great to be playing on hallowed ground," drummer and keyboardist Jon Farris said. "It's a very exciting time. You can just feel it. The whole town's buzzing." Farris said the band, which last performed at the 2001 AFL Grand Final, was proud to be part of such a huge event on Australia's sporting calendar.

JD Fortune joined INXS by winning a reality competition but departed in bizarre circumstances in early 2009 only to rejoin the band to perform at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in February. Fortune said he was just happy to be in Melbourne, soaking up the city and preparing to perform. "It will be my first live AFL game. But I'm learning. The others are giving me a crash course," he said.

McKenna will be the third overseas act to perform at pre-match entertainment after Michael Buble in 2005 and Irene Cara in 2006. His bandmates include fellow American Billy Schleifer and Australians Kate Goldby and Zac Anthony from The Wellingtons (a band based at the inner Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy). McKenna's appearance has created some controversy in Australia, as he is mentored and financially backed by Channel Seven announcer Dennis Cometti, who calls the big match alongside Bruce McAvaney.

Cometti discovered the New England-born singer/songwriter's talent four years ago when he bought "Seven Cigarettes" online, an EP McKenna and Schliefer recorded in Los Angeles. Cometti liked the lyrics and song-writing so much that he featured the title track on his music broadcast segment "Dennis Does Downloads" on the afternoon show "The Big Couch" on Perth radio station Mix 94.5, receiving an overwhelmingly positive response. Later, on one of Cometti's trips every few years to the US, he met with McKenna in Los Angeles to find out more about the latter's music career. Cometti became McKenna's angel investor and McKenna was able to make his full length LP "I Am."

McKenna and Schleifer traveled to Melbourne in 2009 and spent a week creating the music and melody for "Last One Standing", while Cometti contributed the lyrics and paid for the recording. McKenna then performed the song for the first time at the post-Grand Final party at Federation Square. What McKenna thought was cool back then was that even though the crowd had obviously never heard the song before, they picked up on the lyrics right away and sang along. McKenna and Schleifer never imagined that a year later they'd be invited back to perform at the Grand Final. That was never their intention or goal. What was even more surprising was that Channel Seven wasn't interested in the track but the AFL took an instant liking to it.

Cometti is disappointed by comments by Mike Brady, who wrote and performed the famed football song "Up There Cazaly" and thought "Last One Standing" was "… a bit cliched", and music legend Ross Wilson, who said he hoped having an American sing at the Grand Final might ''… give us reciprocal rights … I'm looking forward to the chance to sing at the Superbowl''. ''I would have liked Mike Brady to have liked it,'' Cometti said. ''I regard Mike as a pioneer of football song as a genre. What they have got to understand is that these boys had the tune and the chorus … Australians have had 25 years to write a footy song and these boys did it in a day and a half.''

Cometti said the idea that only Australian entertainers should perform at the grand final smacked of parochialism. ''The NFL is the model the AFL want to follow and if you look at that event, they've had The Who, Paul McCartney (both English) and U2 (Irish). Maybe they see an American singer with an Australian band singing lyrics written by an Australian as good policy," he said.

McKenna hopes that the success of "Last One Standing" in Australia will help demonstrate his music to labels and publishers, even stitching up a publishing deal.

Sources: The Age, AAP, Herald Sun, LA Live Music Examiner James McKenna MySpace website