INXS help draw 588,000 for 60 Minutes

Last night’s episode of Nine Network’s 60 Minutes which featured a segment with INXS drew 588,000 overnight metro viewers, making it the eigth-highest rating show of the night.

Sydney had the highest amount of viewers with 180,000, followed by Melbourne (155,000), Brisbane (118,000), Perth (80,000) and Adelaide (56,000).

The show ranked fifth in all the demos: 25-54, 18-49 and 16-39

The 60 Minutes special was part of INXS’s 40th anniversary celebrations since forming in Sydney’s Northern Beaches and the upcoming 20th anniversary of Michael Hutchence’s death in a Sydney hotel room.

The show took the surviving members back to their beginnings, to Davidson High, where Hutchence and brothers Andrew and Jon Farriss attended (as did 60 Minutes interviewer Tara Brown, but long after the musicians had moved on) and Forest High where Tim Farriss, Kirk Pengilly and Garry Beers forged lifelong friendships.

Poignant were scenes of Andrew and Jon returning to the school’s music room where they had rehearsed, and talking of the day they were told about their singer’s death – visibly still a raw topic for the pair.

There were also text book insights as to why INXS went on to sell 55 million records worldwide.

Close friends from a young age meant they collectively had the vision of “climbing the mountain” together.

They were ambitious, hit the road incessantly, were driven by a visionary manager, were sharp enough to understand and utilise new game-changers of the time like MTV, allowed themselves to look like rock stars, and tap as many mediums as possible to reach the widest range of music fans.

Only a handful of Australian acts chasing the overseas dream successfully ticked off all these boxes.