Powderfinger’s Bernard Fanning and Something For Kate’s Paul Dempsey divide ABC viewers with New Year’s Eve performance: ‘Ancient crones’

Australian rock legends Bernard Fanning and Paul Dempsey left ABC viewers divided on Tuesday night when they performed at the network’s New Year’s Eve festivities.

The iconic musicians took the stage as new duo Fanning Dempsey National Park, a band they debuted this year with their first collaborative album Deluge.

Now the frontmen of Powderfinger and Something For Kate have taken to the stage with a series of covers and original songs, but not all viewers on X were happy to see them.

“Bernard Fanning singing These Days on the #ABCNYE coverage makes me really not want to see the new year,” one cheekily wrote.

Another said: ‘Old crones Bernard Fanning and Paul Dempsey break out falsetto in a *** brown colored suit.’

Despite some nasty comments on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, fans flocked to support the Australian rock legends.

“Not a fan of the ABC, but the Paul Dempsey and Bernard Fanning concert was perfect,” said a viewer at home.

‘Bernard Fanning and Paul Dempsey. On fire. Brilliant,” another commented.

A third wrote: ‘Hands down the best on ABC is Something for Kate and Bernard Fanning. Ringing around the poor 9pm fireworks!’

“I’m really shocked at how good this year’s concert is so far. It didn’t even occur to me that Bernard Fanning could sound like Bowie,” one viewer added.

Bernard, 55, and Paul, 48, went public earlier this year with their new band Fanning Dempsey National Park.

Shortly afterwards they debuted their first album Deluge with Disconnect, the name of the first single.

Their live debut came just weeks later in October with the Deluge Tour, playing Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and returning to Brisbane.

Bernard said in an Instagram video in May that debut single Disconnect was about walking away from a love that “no longer works for you.”

Paul later added: ‘This started out with an almost gospel-like feel, but after a few versions the drums got punchier and the guitars got heavier and heavier.

“Then we started throwing horns at everything and suddenly it was a party.”

Bernard and Paul opened up about two of rock’s biggest frontmen forming a new band, saying they wanted to defy expectations.

“We didn’t want it to sound like a Fanning record or a Dempsey record, we wanted it to sound like a band,” Bernard told the band. ABC in May.

They developed the name Fanning Dempsey National Park to give a “sense of an organization bigger than the two of us.”

“It’s so pompous that it made us laugh every time,” Paul joked.

Bernard and Paul have been friends for decades since their bands Powderfinger and Something For Kate first burst onto the alt-rock scene in the 1990s.

They grew closer during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic when they made a viral video of themselves performing Queen and David Bowie’s classic duet Under Pressure.

Bernard also lent his vocals to the Something For Kate song Inside Job from their 2020 album The Modern Medieval.

Since then, the pair say they’ve been “exchanging songs and ideas online” until it evolved into their newest rock band.

Powderfinger first formed in Brisbane in 1989, with the line-up consisting of Bernard, Darren Middleton, Ian Haug, John Collins and Jon Coghill from 1992 to 2010.

Although the band officially broke up in 2010, they have reunited several times in recent years.

Meanwhile, Something For Kate was founded in 1994 by Paul and Clint Hyndman, with Stephanie Ashworth joining in 1998. The band is still together.