Tones and I Announces Echuca Pop-Up After NRL Grand Final Talks Collapse
Tones and I will play an all-ages acoustic set with a meet-and-greet at the Echuca Hotel in Victoria on Friday, Oct. 2, two days before the NRL Grand Final in Sydney. The singer, born Toni Watson, announced the pop-up after talks to headline the grand final pre-show on Oct. 4 broke down. Billboard
Tickets for the Echuca show go on sale on Sept. 30. The date sits in a busy weekend for the singer, who is also booked to headline the Deni Ute Muster festival in Deniliquin, New South Wales, on Oct. 2-3. That festival booking was confirmed alongside the hotel announcement.
The NRL had initially said there would be no pre-game entertainment for this year's decider, pointing to creative differences. League boss Peter V'landys said at the time that the fee set aside for the performance would instead go to grassroots football, meaning junior rugby league. That decision followed the collapse of discussions with Tones and I's camp.
Her team at Lemon Tree Management later set out its version of events. It said she was approached to play the pre-show and an offer was presented through management on Sept. 5. Nothing was signed or confirmed in writing, the team said, and the offer could not be accepted because of the last-minute timing and prior commitments, including work with Macklemore in America.
V'landys has since said a surprise pre-game act will still perform, without naming the artist. Shannon Noll and Jon Stevens have both put their hands up for the slot. The grand final itself will see the Sydney Roosters face the Newcastle Knights in Sydney on Sunday, with the pre-show scheduled for Oct. 4.
Watson emerged in 2019 as a busker from the Mornington Peninsula in Australia. Her breakout single "Dance Monkey" spent 24 weeks at No. 1 on the ARIA Singles Chart, Australia's official singles ranking, and is certified 20-times Platinum in Australia and six-times platinum in the United States. The track is also listed by her team as the most Shazamed song of all time and the first by a female artist to pass three billion streams on Spotify with one song. Tones and I
Her 2019 EP "The Kids Are Coming" reached the Top 30 of the Billboard 200, the US albums chart. Debut album "Welcome To The Madhouse" topped the ARIA Album Chart in 2021, and follow-up "Beautifully Ordinary", released on Aug. 2, 2024, also reached No. 1 in Australia. She has won five ARIA Awards, including Song of the Year in 2022 for "Cloudy Day".
For fans, this means a small-room alternative to stadium scale. An acoustic set and meet-and-greet in a country hotel is a different night from a grand final pre-show. The calendar now gives both.
