Before the big night we got all glammed up, preparing to see some of the biggest acts in the Australian music industry – well, us girls did. As my friends Rachel and Nicole and my boyfriend Luke and I arrived at the event we saw the, for now, empty red carpet with the screaming fans barricaded away from the edges. We felt special because unlike those screaming fans, we had our own designated seating arrangement thanks to nova 969! From this view we not only saw Aussie artists but international acts such as Jesse McCartney, (who I personally think should have stayed in America); John Mayer and the fine looking Johnny Knoxville and two of his Dudeson brother’s friends, who were throwing darts at each others painted bullseye stomachs. As for the Aussie artists, they were all dressed up and ready to perform and/or accept awards. We saw:

• Eskimo Joe, who performed first
• John Butler Trio
• Sleepy Jackson
• The Living End
• The Whitlams
• Joel turner and the Modern Day Poets
• Young Divas
• Stephanie McKintosh
• Jade McCrae
• Anthony Callea
• Shannon Noll
• Guy Sebastian

We also spotted Wolf Mother, The Veronicas, Bernard Fanning, Casey Chambers, Pete Murray, Human Nature and Hilltops Hoods, who all performed at the Arias. Silverchair also performed as a tribute to the legendary Midnight Oil - was inducted into the hall of fame. Unfortunately for us, we missed Eskimo Joe’s performance as it took us approximately all of their song and half of the ceremony just to get to our seating level on the escalators. After we had finished ascending 1000m into the sky we finally reached the top, hoping that the sheer height we had travelled was just an exaggeration of our imagination, - this was just before we spotted the “binocular hire” stall at the door of our seating. Could it have been that high? It wasn’t too bad I guess as we could roughly see who we thought were the Veronicas, but to mine and Rachel’s horror as they stood to accept an award, we realised were two men!

Really cool experience, seeing all our fave performers in one night and getting to see a free gig!