What Hanson thought of the Promo Tour 1997!
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(Taken from the Official book by Jarrod Gollihare)
It was at the Melbourne airport that things began to get a bit crazy. Crowds of hysterical fans had descended on the airport to greet their musical heroes.
The hysteria of the Australian fans was caused by the fact that 'MMMBop' had been number 1 in Australia for nine weeks by the time the boys arrived there. Combined with a big "Hand is coming!" promotional push, this national love of the band had reached a fever pitch by July…as evidenced by another unusual mall appearance.
The band began by spending some time in Sydney - concentrating on their usual promotional duties, which included a very unusual performance for a group of radio contest winners on a ferry in Sydney Harbour.
"It was kind of an awkward thing," says Taylor, "because we were in the hull of this boat that was packed with a crowd of contest winners. But in that situation it seemed lit there were a whole lot more because it was such a small area. Not to mention video cameras and press. It was a very unique situation for performing. It's not very often you're on a rocking boat singing to a packed room of girls, after all. It was pretty wild."
Ike agrees "They were definitely very enthusiastic. Before Australia we'd been doing a lot more concert situations where we were not very close to the audience. But this was different because it was very, very intimate so it was a lot of fun."
"After we landed," says Taylor, "the flight attendant said 'You guys need to wait until everybody else gets off the plane. You need to be the last ones off.' We couldn't figure it out and asked, 'Why?' They just smiled and said, 'Just wait.' So we waited and we were the last ones off, and just before we got inside the terminal they said, 'I hope you're ready 'cause there's a lot of people out there.'"
They weren't kidding either. Hundreds of screaming girls were clogging up the terminal.
"When we went out into the waiting area it was just totally wacko," grins Taylor. "I mean, in Japan there were a lot of people at the airport, but it was very much under control. Not here, however!"
"There was a circle around us," laughs Zac, "and there were a thousand fans there, and we were thinking 'help us!'"
"There was a chain of four or five security guards around us but that didn't stop them. The fans were just jumping on them and putting their arms through and screaming" says Taylor.
"At first it was supposed to be an in-store performance," explains Taylor. "Very small, not a big deal. But in Australia we had a very big following, so the organizers had to move the appearance into this huge parking garage because they were expecting a lot of people."
"The night before, we went down to the garage," says Zac. "We were thinking, 'We'll never fill this place. This is huge!"
The band's concerns about their ability to fill the parking garage were unnecessary, as it turned out. The next day, more than 25,000 fans arrived to see them.
"It was amazing," says Taylor. "People flew in from all across Australia to see us. This parking garage went back so far that you couldn't see the end of the people. It was definitely our biggest show so far."
Or as Zac so elegantly puts it: "Yeah, it was, I mean, it was just…wow."
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On the Southland instore…
Dylan: That little mini gig that you had yesterday, they were only expecting 8,000 people…and there was 6,000 people there by 8am! Now by the time you guys went on there was about 25,000 people!
Isaac: It was pretty insane.
Phil: We'll talk about how crazy your fans are. Man, cos I remember when you came and did Melbourne…20,000 people?
Isaac: When we were in Melbourne, we did a show that was originally planned on being an in-store performance, but it ended up being a performance for about 25,000 people in a parking lot! How could you forget that one? We were looking at this place going, "Wow! If we fill this area we will be doing great. They must be expecting a lot of people". Turns out the area they had barricaded, for maybe 8-10,000 people, just overflowed like crazy. You couldn't see the end of the people! And the airport was full of people! It's insane how many people were there. We walked out the gate and there were thousands of people waiting for us. And they had six policemen who surrounded us and our Dad and our security guy and our manager, and we made this circle just to get through the crowd. It was insane.
Ugly Phil: Have you had any more instores like the one you had in Melbourne?
Taylor: There were a lot of people there!
Dylan: Is that the biggest concert you've ever done?
Isaac: Yeah, that is the biggest gig that we've done so far.
Dylan: Were there just people everywhere?
Taylor: It was just…amazing!
Taylor: It was absolutely insane!! It was amazing.
Isaac: There was…oh it was just a totally awesome experience to have that many people. What is amazing is to look down at the crowd and you can that they are singing the song. That's the coolest thing. You can see them, and they're singing the words with you.
Jackie: That was huge.
Isaac: It was more than that actually.
Jackie: Yeah it was, I thought so.
Taylor: It was about 25.
Phil: Did you get up on stage and think like in that film 'we need a bigger boat'…but 'we need a bigger security guard?"
Isaac: Well, they, on the news they made it sound worse than it really was.
Taylor: It was like, you know, 40 people dead!!!!
(everyone laughs)
Taylor: Massacred!! They came in with axes, machine guns…blood everywhere!!!
Phil: Return of Hanson! Fright Night Six!
Jackie: The fans were all out on the street though…
Taylor: Oh yeah that was amazing. Incredible.
Phil: So what's the biggest crowd you've had? That would have to be one of them, for instores, yeah?
Isaac: Yeah that would be it.
Taylor: Definitely as far as an acoustic show, it's the biggest.
Isaac: We have not had any more that even came close. You Australians just beat them all. We've had some pretty wild instores over here in the States but nothing quite in comparison to Australia.