A HARD PLACE TO ROCK

HOW many gigs have the Commonwealth Games cost live music fans on the Gold Coast? With our stadiums out of bounds to concert promoters this summer, the Coast’s loss has been Brisbane’s gain.

IF you’re a music fan grumpy at being inconvenienced by planning for April’s Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, you might want to stop reading now!

Hosting the Games might very well have cost us the chance to see Beatles great Paul McCartney, Ed Sheeran or even Foo Fighters rock a stadium here instead of in Brisbane.

Leading Australian promoter Michael Gudinski, who christened Metricon Stadium as a live music venue when he brought the Foo Fighters and Tenacious D to town in 2011, has been trying to line up another stadium act for Gold Coast audiences ever since.

“Bruce Springsteen loves the Gold Coast. He always stays on the Coast when he’s here,” Gudinski says.

“I tried to get him to do Metricon last time (on his February 2017 tour) but he wasn’t interested. He doesn’t like playing stadiums.”

Gudinski (inset) admits he’s reluctant to take a chance on bringing a major international act to the Coast for a stadium show on a school night but would happily bypass Brisbane to bring a star our way on a Saturday or long weekend.

Sadly, with Metricon and Robina Stadiums out of bounds since the footy seasons ended last year so they could be fitted out for the Games, we’ll never know what might have been. Could Gudinski have swung McCartney, Foo Fighters or Ed Sheeran’s summer tours our way and saved us a trip up the highway to hell to see them in Brisbane? Possibly.

For the record, neither of the Foo Fighters gigs at Lang Park (in 2015 and on Thursday) delivered the same snap, crackle and pop as their soldout stand at Metricon. Just sayin!

‘I tried to get (Springsteen) to do Metricon last time’