Crowded House made their triumphant return to Sydney’s Opera House forecourt over the weekend. Which proved to be something of a ratings powerhouse for the ABC. Who broadcast the last of four sold out shows for the group.
While the size of the crowd was a far cry from the near 100,000 that crammed Sydney’s harbour exactly 20 years ago. The show still drew in huge numbers on TV. As the Sydney Morning Herald reports, 643,000 viewers tuned in according to OzTam’s overnight ratings.
The four-night stint was not without its share of controversy; the shows were dogged by complaints from residents of Circular Quay’s famous toaster building. Perhaps the most famous of which being 2GB host Alan Jones.
With residents taking to twitter to complain night after night. Is it possible so many of us tuned in to see just what Neil Finn might say?
Safe to say Mr. Finn did not disappoint; “To all the nice people in the Toaster, when they bought their $7 million apartment they thought ‘God there’s going to be some nice music to listen to’, let’s hear it for them,” proclaimed Finn, reports Music Feeds.
Crowded House’s live show was most popular in Sydney, where it ranked 6th for the night. Perhaps most surprisingly however, is that the screening came in 12th in the band’s home city of Melbourne but still had the second biggest numbers for the night.
Brisbane had the next highest figures, followed by Perth and finally Adelaide.
The concerts, which marked 20 years since the group performed their farewell shows also managed out rank the ARIAs which aired earlier in the week, despite Australia’s love for Farnsey making it one of the most watched ARIAs of recent years with 586,000 viewers, considerably more than the 461,000 who tuned in last year.
