Billboard Bits: Peter Allen’s ‘Australia’ Added to Sound Archive, Vanda & Young Songwriting Comp Winner, Springsteen Returns
Peter Allen’s “I Still Call Australia Home,” Russell Morris’ “The Real Thing,” and Archie Roach’s “Took the Children Away” are among the ten works being added to the registry of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
Established in 2007, the “Sounds of Australia” list of recordings is selected on the basis of their “cultural, historical and aesthetic significance and relevance, which inform or reflect life in Australia.”
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The Australian public nominates the sounds to be added, while the final selections are decided by a panel of industry experts. Each recording must be more than 10 years old and, obviously, originate from Australia.
AC/DC’s “Long Way to the Top” and the Saints’ “(I’m) Stranded” are among the 70-plus recordings already in the vault.
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Sydney-based singer and songwriter Isabella Manfredi has won the prestigious – and lucrative – Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition for the song “Is This How You Feel?”
Manfredi collects the first prize of Australian $50,000 ($45,000) for “Feel,” a lively indie pop-rock number performed by The Preatures.
It’s considered the largest first prize for any songwriting competition in the world, and is provided by collecting societies APRA/AMCOS and the Australian independent music company Alberts.
Sydney-based songwriter and producer Robert Conley has taken-out the Australian $10,000 ($9,000) second-prize with the song “Paper Thin”. There was a tie for third-place between Thelma Plum for “Breathe In Breathe Out” and Jasmine Nelson for “Keep Her Close”; both collected Australian $5,000 ($4,500).
This year marks the third iteration of the biennial Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition. Manfredi joins a select group of recipients that includes Megan Washington (2009) and Kimbra Johnson (2011).
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The Boss is heading back to Australia.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will deliver an encore tour of Australia in 2014, having completed a round of dates Down Under in March 2013.
Springsteen’s “Wrecking Ball” tour to Australia earlier this year — where he played three-hour plus shows in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and at Victoria’s iconic Hanging Rock — was the rock star’s first Down Under in more than a decade.
Those shows “were among the very best and most satisfying of our whole 128 show tour,” comments Springsteen’s long-time manager and producer, Jon Landau in a statement. “The crowds were tremendous, the fans as warm, friendly, and welcoming as we could ever hope for, and the quality of the performances, as virtually every reviewer commented, were spectacularly high.”
Michael Gudinski’s Frontier Touring Company will again promote Springsteen’s dates, which will roll into Auckland, New Zealand for the first time and promises to be his most extensive trek of Australia.
The “Wrecking Ball” tour “wasn’t even over before there were discussions about a return and I’m so thrilled that of anywhere in the world they chose here to return to,” notes Gudinski.
Tickets to the seven-date 2014 tour go on sale Aug. 26, and pre-sale tickets are available from the Frontier Touring Website.
Bruce Springsteen’s 2014 Australian tour dates:
Feb. 7 – Perth Arena
Feb. 11 – Entertainment Centre, Adelaide
Feb. 15 – AAMI Park, Melbourne
Feb. 19 – Allphones Arena, Sydney
Feb. 22 – Hope Estate, Hunter Valley
Feb. 26 – Brisbane | Entertainment Centre
March 1 – Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland
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