Fans Bring Home Newcastle Show
Newcastle, Australia, is a small industrial city on the east coast, approximately two hours north of Sydney. Beautiful beaches abound and a laid back lifestyle exists. That image is about to change on November 19th when Pearl Jam converge on Australia's sixth largest city - our little slice of heaven - to play the Newcastle Entertainment Centre in front of about 5000 fellow Pearl Jam fans.
We still can't believe it. Pearl Jam playing in our hometown, and we had a part to play in it!
It all started in February of this year. On the Pearl Jam Message Pit, there was a post which contained an Australian tour itinerary. Looking at the dates searching for a Sydney show, one city jumped out and made our collective hearts skip a beat - NEWCASTLE!!!!
It was unbelievable. Pearl Jam in Newcastle? Eddie's been surfing here before with his friend Mark Richards (four-time world surfing champion and Newcastle legend), but actually playing here? As time passed and both U.S. legs were announced, the excitement grew. Next came the European tour announcement. Finally, the Australia tour announcement arrived. We scanned the dates and venues checking them once, twice, three times.
No Newcastle. Looks like another trip to Sydney.
Over the next couple of days on the Message Pit there was a lot of support for a Pearl Jam show in Newcastle from Aussies who frequent the board. After careful consideration Rob decided to send an email to local radio station NewFM to see if they could help. A couple of days went by and there was no reply from NewFM so he went back to the Aussie thread on the Message Pit and asked his fellow countrymen and -women to help me out. Showing typical Aussie spirit they agreed to help, and proceeded to also send emails to NewFM.
Out of the mist of support came a shining light, and that light was Andrew McCallum.
Andrew proceeded to create an online petition, and with this petition we called yet again on our fellow Aussies on the Message Pit to lend their support, and yet again they lent it to us. In just over a day, we had over 150 signatures on our petition. Now the question was "How can we attract more names?" After thinking long and hard one name popped up: Mark Richards. Mark owns a surf shop in Newcastle so we sent him an email through his shop's website asking him if he could lend us his support by signing the petition.
I awoke the next morning and checked my email. There in my Inbox was the golden message - a reply from Mark Richards - and so quick too! Mark was happy to lend his support and sign the petition. The next line was the surprising one. He stated that he'd spoken to Ed about two weeks before and Ed had told him that Pearl Jam were playing Newcastle.
Rob and Andrew hooked up with former schoolmate and fan Mark Waddingham and the team had been assembled. The three of us met at Mark's house to come up with ideas. Mark came up with the absolutely fantastic idea of phoning the local paper, the Newcastle Herald, to tell them about our idea. The journalist at The Herald promised to put a "blurb" in the next day's paper with a link to the petition. She also promised to run a bigger story on our campaign if the petition reached 450 names. The paper ran a story and the local radio stations jumped on board.
In less than two weeks, we had collected 2200 valid names on the petition (duplicates and fakes filtered out). Just when we thought this would be our peak, we received an email from NewFM saying "Call tomorrow at work, or on mobile after hours". "Oh", thought Andrew, "what have we done wrong?"
Going the mobile route, the conversation went something like this:
NewFM: "Hello"
Andrew: "G'day"
NewFM: "Pearl Jam are playing in Newcastle, we are announcing it tomorrow and thought you guys would like to know."
Andrew: &%^$*#$&#^@ that is so &^#*@#$ cool!!!!!!!!
As the enormity of the situation sank in, we couldn't help but remember the cries from the naysayers throughout the life of the petition: "What do you think you're doing!" , "Be grateful for (Sydney)!" and "They won't play in Newcastle!".
Let us say to all of them:
We are immensely grateful for everything the most generous band in the world have done, both for us fans, and for people everywhere. But after the rumor of a show, and the possibility (particularly when we found out that Ed thought they were playing in Newcastle, and a date had been reserved) for a show. The effort to show support of the show had to go ahead.
We never claimed that we deserved to have PJ play in our town, nor that we needed them to play; but if there was a chance they might play we would show our support.
This show has become a reality not by the support of a local radio station, the local paper, nor one of Eddie's friends in Mark Richards (although all of these definitely helped), but because enough people showed support for the show and a desire to see the greatest band in the world play in a smaller, more intimate venue. This is all we organized, we just provided a voice.
Thank you Pearl Jam, and every one who signed the petition and made this all possible. See you on the 19th!
