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The Story Behind Powderfinger's Surprise Splendour Reunion

"It was awesome. Amazing. The response was incredible."
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Splendour In The Grass is famous for its history of surprise, blockbuster guest appearances, but perhaps none have been so feverishly received than the two-song reunion of Powderfinger during Bernard Fanning's Saturday night set. Fanning himself told HuffPost Australia he was blown away and completely shocked by the reaction to his sneaky plan to get his old band mates together for the first time in years.

"It's become a lot more of a talking point, we didn't even really think about it that much. Because we've been involved in the festival since its very beginning, but that many of us haven't been there at the same time when one of us was playing, since the band broke up. So on Friday, we just said 'do you want to do it? Play a couple of tunes? Yeah let's do it!'," Fanning said.

"We finalised the idea on Friday. we got together on Friday and said 'should we do it?'"

"It was awesome. Amazing. The response was incredible."

Fanning's Saturday night set at the main amphitheatre was well-received, but things hit fever pitch when a few friends jumped on stage, bringing together four of the original five members of the iconic Aussie rock act. It was a short but intense surprise, as the ex-Powderfinger members blasted through '(Baby I've Got You) On My Mind' and 'These Days', but in an interview with HuffPost Australia, Fanning was quick to dash any hopes that we would be seeing a proper band reunion or tour anytime soon.

"It's not a reunion. Cogsy (drummer John Coghill) wasn't playing for starters, he wasn't at the festival. It wasn't even the whole band, that's why we cant work out why there's such a big fuss being made," Fanning laughed.

"It's absolutely a one-off. There's no plans or ideas for a reunion or a tour or anything like that. It's just something that may happen from time to time, whenever we're all in the same place at the same time. I think people want that to be the case, they want there to be a reunion, they want there to be a tour, but we don't want that."

"It's just not on the books for us. Everyone is busy anyway, everyone's doing their own thing.

Nevertheless, Fanning said the reunion was a blast.

"It's a really fun feeling to be back on stage with those guys, and also to see the level of affection people have for Powderfinger as well. It's great," he said.

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