★★★★★ 0/5

The 2010 ARIA Awards

Last night's ARIA Awards, ambitiously presented on the Opera House forecourt, were an exercise in how not to stage a live awards show.

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Gosh that was awkward….

I love award nights for the times when they veer off script. But last night’s ARIA Awards seemed so far off-script I was praying it would get back on it.

FremantleMedia Australia broadcast the 2010 event from the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House. It has previously staged Australian Idol finales there before. Apparently it’s uber-cool. But while it works great for pre-show entertainment and Red Carpet, it just makes me wish they had booked  the Concert Hall instead.

Indoor events on a stage may be very traditional, but they are a lot more focussed than the scary montage I watched last night. A relaxed show also lends itself to moments of chemistry. The only chemistry I saw last night was Myf Warhurst awe-struck by Silverchair’s Chris Joannou.

Now I understand why Jimmy Barnes had criticised the event in the lead-up to the event, likening it to trying to recreate a Countdown concert instead of it actually being about the industry.

Last night the industry was left to wander around sipping a glass in the wind on the steps of the Opera House. Cheers for your year in music, guys. Have another bubbly.

On the positive side, most of the performances were entertaining -and that can’t have been easy in an outside broadcast. Washington turned it on with a performance practically channelling Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamond are a Girl’s Best Friend”. Guy Sebastian’s closing number “I Like It Like That” continues to show his versatility. Dan Sultan was a great fit with INXS.

But the hosts weren’t given enough to distinguish themselves from presenters. Natalie Bassingthwaighte spent the whole night yelling.

And where do we start with the Presenters? Awkwardly staged like gatecrashers, they were frequently shot from low angles with shadows cast everytime somebody moved. Bob Katter (calling them the “ARIARIAs”) took forever to announce a winner. The Church’s Steve Kilbey took longer still, until somebody off camera told him to get on with it. Lara Bingle’s contibution was to ask Jason Derulo “How are you?” The kids from Operator Please seemed a bit dazed by the autocue.

And Jessica Mauboy? Calling “Debut” as “De-butt” was bad enough once. What the hell, let’s do it a second time. The word “rehearsal” springs to mind, Jess…

Things were also awkward when winners had to make their way to a point somwhere in the crowd to receive their trophy. There were issues assembling winners to face the camera. It was worse when people tried to slink away after speeches. A couple of cutaways didn’t help.

Marcia Hines acknowledged the passing of James Freud. What a shame all we saw was a long-distance shot on a screen (not even acknowledging any of his music). Nobody remembered Dame Joan Sutherland and we’re at the bloody Opera House. A crime.

The big winners of the night were Angus and Julia Stone (they thanked their dog… bit of a change from thanking God), Washington, Powderfinger and The Temper Trap who each received two trophies.

After last year’s disappointing ARIAs on Nine, it was a shame this felt more like an ARIAs-progressive dinner. It paled beside ARIAs that were produced by Roving Enterprises, and reminds us how creative some awards can be: Kid’s Choice Awards, anyone?

Finally, Modern Family‘s Eric Stonestreet politely kept up the enthusiasm, but couldn’t help but admit he really wanted to be on the stage of the Sydney Opera House.

We’re with you on that one, Eric.

108 Responses

  1. Wow you summed it up perfectly. It was a total car-wreck. Powderfinger didn’t even know which award they’d won when they were sort herded to some nondescript area to be sort-of presented with their trophies.
    And who writes scripts for award ceremonies like this? The dialogue between Carmen Electra and her co-host was the most unfunny, unspontaneous garbage ever. Do the producers think we’re going to watch and believe these people are engaging in casual chit-chat?! I don’t know why the hosts can’t just ad-lib a little rather than stick to lines that a) obviously weren’t written by them and b) are crap.

  4. Yeah when I saw Ricki-Lee saying to Eric Stonestreet, “Oh I thought you were….” while she’s limping her wrist, all I kept thinking was we’re going to have another Stephanie Rice incident

  5. I thought that the ARIA’s last night were a mess too. The hosts didn’t o much more than what the presenters did, the different areas the awards were presented were dark and overcrowded, and when the winners were announced, was like a ”wheres Wally” (with the winners hard to spot)

    Bring back Roving to produce a better awards ceremony

  6. This years ARIA’s were absolutely crap. Thought couldn’t get any worse than last year but this was a complete rabble. Nat Bass was terrible host, agree all she did was yell. The presenters choices were just odd. The poor artists that won hardly got treated poorly. You win, now try and find your way through the crowd and we’ll ask you 2 questions while we have this drunk old woman with a champagne glass stadning behind us.

    They wanted to make this years ARIAS about the fans to get the people interested again. It shouldn’t be about the fans it should be about the artists and the industry. The outdoor concerts were good enough for the public, the awards should have been held inside.

    Why are our awards ceremonies always so dodgy? This is supposed to be the music industries night of night. Prestigious. But it looked like Kids Choice Awards or MTV Awards. Terrible to watch on tv also.

    Scrap the ARIAS as a television broadcast and just have a classy ceremony for the artists

  8. The whole ARIA awards are a farce. Take the “Best Single” award which was won by Angus & Julia Stone for “Big Jet Plane”. What is the criteria for the award, it certainly isn’t sales because it only peaked at #33. It would have probably been based on snob factor, and that loses ARIA a lot of credibility. They should give the voting to the general public for all awards except sales based ones.

  10. I think the issue was it rained all week and so the event was able to be rehearsed – only the music performances. It was deliberately trying to be more MTV too, which I personally liked. Sure, some of the presenters fluffed their stuff but I liked Rebel Wilson’s skit and her contributions, she’s so cool!

  11. It was an absolute mess. Unfunny guest presenters who think being smutty is funny or presenters like Bob Katter who had no idea what they are doing or where they were. Winners like Powderfinger didn’t know where they should be going to get their awards or didn’t know what award they even won because they couldn’t hear it being announced. Winners of awards like Angus and Julia Stone not even given a chance to thank anybody and random people walking around them and behind them the whole thing just looks like an absolute mess.
    Whoever is making these decisions at ARIA for the award shows these past two years should have their bum kicked hard.

  12. I wasn’t going to watch the roadwreck that are the ARIAS but when I heard that they were going to pay tribute to James Freud, I changed my mind. Remind me not to do that again. I truly felt for Marcia Hines, it certainly wasn’t her fault at such a crap ‘tribute’ to James and you are right David, where was Dame Joan’s tribute? What has happened to the ARIAS? It just seems like its a good excuse for a party for a bunch of musicians that most of us Over-25yo’s have never heard of. Simply whoaful.

  14. Way harsh David…this was fresh, and entertaining sitting at home. I don’t care if the artists didn’t think much of it…if you want your night of nights, maybe you’ll have to do it without the support of a TV Network. TEN had new graphics which reminded me a lot of MTV…and a house party at Australia’s most famous “House” was a cool idea. So no, I don’t care that the hosts and presenters were like gatecrashers, it wasn’t really about them, and gave the illusion of a party. Well done TEN for revamping what could have been a really traditional big room, big screen, weird stage sculptures, seen it all before etc etc.

  15. Good critique, I agree with you, though I think you’ve give it one-and-a-half stars more than it deserved. Someone deserves to be sacked for this travesty, It was a two hour train wreck. Absolutely dreadful. I suppose they were trying to be edgy and cool but it didn’t work at all. It was just bizarre and did the Australian music industry no favours. Horrid.

  16. What a terrible “celebration” of Australian music. David, I think your 1.5 stars was too much! From Rebel (good luck to her, but seriously, made me sick at the Arias), to the handing out awards in the midst of crowds, it was a complete disaster, un utter fail. No creditability. At all.

  17. It truly was off-the-chain bad. It was the worst awards show I have ever seen. I agree with everything above and more, like why was Geoff Heugill a presenter? And why did Rebel Wilson get that gig?I honestly believe I could have produced a better show…. and i’m a lawyer.

  19. Yeah, it was pretty average… Too many presenters that didn’t do a good job at all.

    I do like Dylan and Natalie, but maybe letting Rebel Wilson host would have been a better option since they basically did nothing while Rebel co-hosted.

  20. What a joke of an awards night. Trying way too hard to be cool and hip “wth the kids”. How about some class ? How about everything not being about shagging the nearest thing to you and respecting the artists your presenting awards to ? Too much to ask ?
    It really smacked of too many “cling ons” clueless about music but seaking their 5 mins of fame in this fame driven world.
    WHere was the stage ? the artists looked lost trying to find where to recieve their award.
    Cant we have an Australian music awards night rather than the american wanna be MTV crap ?
    Who cast the girl from pizza in that role “kho my gawd” it was terrible !
    Anyway thats my 2 cents. Try a little harder is my advice. You got the cash but take a look around any day of the week , money dosnt buy style !
    cheers
    oh , Jon Butlers song / jam was incredible , so good to see “real music” with soul at such a plastic superficial event. It really stood out along with powder fingers performance as well.

  25. Still, I feel bad for the poor producer who probably had to watch for two hours whilst the show they pictured in their head failed to eventuate on screen. That is pressure I could do without! Just for curiosity’s sake, can somebody tell me why Roving Enterprises didn’t do the Arias this year?

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