Radio Info Australia

Photo – Rodney Magazinovic

What happens when a teen duo grows up? They buy a brewery. And their fans grow up too.

Nine years ago, Bernadette Agostino waited outside Adelaide’s Mix102.3 from 12 midnight for the chance to catch a glimpse of her favourite band, Hanson. Bernadette and her friends even trailed the band in her car as they left the station. Eventually, Hanson had to pull over and ask her to stop following them.

This week that determination finally paid off when Bernadette won a Mix102.3 search for Adelaide ‘s biggest Hanson fan, and Mix 102.3’s Jodie, Soda and Snowy took her to West End Breweries Bar 107 to join the band for a cold MmmHops Ale, named after their global hit MmmBop.

The Hanson Brothers are passionate craft brewers, and loved the chance to compare their own brew with some of the local product at West End Breweries.

And no, this time Bernadette didn’t follow Hanson home.

3news

Pop-rockers Hanson have vowed to press on with their Australia/NZ tour after doctors prescribed “vocal rest” for one of their members.

Drummer/singer Zac Hanson has fallen sick on the band’s tour Down Under and he has been ordered to rest his voice.

His brother bandmates have decided not to cancel the upcoming shows and will press ahead with a gig at Sydney’s The Hi-Fi venue on Wednesday night.

In a series of posts on Twitter, Zac reveals he will still take to the stage with his siblings, but won’t be singing as usual.

He writes, “Well I have lost my voice all together, but if you all are willing we will still make the HiFi rock tonight. You can’t stop us!… Went to the DR (doctor) today and was told I need ‘vocal rest’ so I need the crowd tonight to do all my parts. You guys up for that?”

Hanson are due to perform in Auckland at the Powerstation on August 17.

WENN.com / 3 News

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Picture this – it’s 1997 and a venue full of screaming teenage girls (much like a modern day One Direction concert) are all sweating with excitement and anticipation for their dream boys to take the stage. The lights dim, the girls scream so hard that they pass out and a very young Hanson take the stage. Now imagine that exact same scene seventeen years later, only the teenage girls are thirty year old women and their dream boys are now grown men. Thirty year old women are scary at the best of times, but thirty year old women in Hanson t-shirts are straight up terrifying.

Whatever bubblegum pop 90′s image you have in your head about Hanson – get rid of it. Just as their fans have grown, so has their sound; they are no longer the talented preteens that you remember. Their musical growth and maturity is so incredibly obvious, and seeing them live only solidifies that. Hanson are the type of band that continuously shock and surprise audiences with their capabilities, and it’s what I was able to witness upon seeing them at the Palais Theatre in St. Kilda on Saturday night.

Opening the evening was The Voice Australia contestant, Adam Martin. Despite playing to an initially less than interested crowd, he managed to capture people’s attention and prove why he was so unjustly eliminated from his stint on the show. With a mix of original songs and a smooth as silk Coldplay cover to boot, Martin ended his half hour set by getting everyone to pose for an Instagram picture (which the women in the audience fell head over heels for).

Fast forward forty minutes or so and the champagne fuelled crowd basically fell over each other as Zac took to his drum kit, and Taylor and Isaac followed with giddy, graceful greetings. Diving right into Fired Up from their latest album,Anthem, followed by the classic Where’s the Love, their harmonies were enough to melt everyone right into their seats. Clad with cheeky, amused smiles, the boys lapped up every second of stage time and adoring feedback with quality banter and intimate audience appreciation.

Whether they were playing throwback songs or tracks from their latest and greatest, the flow of effervescent feedback did not cease. As each of the brothers took the stage for solo songs, their individual strengths and charms were on display and were far from evading. If anything, it only proved how underrated they currently are in a mainstream music sense and that they are capable of far greater moments than MMMbop(which, after twenty years on this earth and endless years of preteen lust, I still was not prepared to witness live).

Despite my knowledge of the Hanson catalog extending as far as five or six songs, the sheer intensity of the ladies around me more than made up for it. I left with confirmation that Isaac can only be described as handsome, Taylor’s smile is capable of lighting up an entire room and that Zac is undoubtedly an angel.