ARIA Awards 2014 Red Carpet
The Australian music industry’s biggest night of celebration is here! The 2014 ARIA Awards are taking place at The Event Centre at The Star Sydney later today (Wednesday 26th November) and I’ll be bringing you live updates from the event on Sydney Unleashed.
Before hitting the red carpet, I can’t help but reminisce about some of the memorable quips I’ve encountered backstage in previous years. Like the time when a low-cut dress-wearing Tina Arena told me her ‘Greatest Hits’ album should have been re-titled ‘Greatest Tits’…or when Jimmy Barnes admitted that “leaving Cold Chisel was probably one of the hardest things I ever did”…or when Silverchair’s Daniel Johns revealed his addiction to Sneaky Sound System: “How catchy are their songs…you hear one and you’re f**ked!”
Then there was the time when David Hasselhoff tried to make sense of all the ‘Hoff’ jokes going around: “Get off like a Hoff – what does that mean? I’m in the rest room last night and I’m ‘get off like a Hoff’, hehe.” A conversation in 2008 with Shane Nicholson, the-then husband of Kasey Chambers, was also memorable: “I would try and organise for us to write together but (Kasey) kept going, ‘Oh no! I’m tired! I’ve got a headache! Let’s have sex instead’. It was really interesting faking headaches to get out of songwriting.”
But perhaps it’s my first ARIAs experience in 2003 that remains most vivid. It also happened to be the very first ARIAs for an afro-haired fellow by the name of Guy Sebastian who I’d bumped into backstage and then later on in the restroom, of all places, at the afterparty. While revealing that he’d been getting ribbed for looking like Jack Osborne and how passionate he was about cricket, his side-kick Rob ‘Millsy’ Mills thought I looked hungry and proceeded to feed me a donut. With the soundtrack of urinals flushing behind me and a future Australian Idol looking on, that image has been tattooed into my brain ever since.
So what frivolity will 2014 bring? Will Katy Perry take on the donut-feeding responsibilities this time around? Tune in to this page later this afternoon to find out…
Danny Canak
LIVE & DIRECT FROM THE RED CARPET
All images © Danny Canak
