Seventeen years after their recording career began, country music super-stars Brooks & Dunn have completed their first Australian tour. A tour that provided so many positive outcomes on so many levels.

We’ve seen Shania Twain, Keith Urban and The Dixie Chicks sell out major venues in the past. But what made this tour extra special is that Brooks & Dunn aren’t a cross-over group with a couple of pop hits to draw from. They are a straight up the guts modern day country act. A great modern day country act doing a great modern day country show. They sold out Brisbane (twice) before performing shows at Acer Arena in Sydney and Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne with crowd intensities that equalled the Justin Timberlake concerts earlier this year.

This tour has well and truly proved that if you give the local market a great country show, people will go. Nearly 50,000 in fact across the 4 shows. "Brooks & Who?" they said 4 months ago. Not anymore.

Brooks & Dunn first hit the local radio market in the early 90’s. At that time both 2SM in Sydney and 4BC in Brisbane both had 24/7 country music formats. It was a golden time really for the genre and it was during that period that the careers of artists like James Blundell, Lee Kernaghan and a young Keith Urban were established locally. I’ve got no doubt that many of the fans who were listeners back then have stuck with the band and were at these capital city shows.

The tour also demonstrated something else. Recording great songs, whether you write them or whether someone else does, is the best way to ensure longevity in this business. Brooks & Dunn served up 2 hours of hits. There were no fillers, just hit and hit after hit. Singing other people’s songs is often frowned upon in this market – but this act prove that the ’best song wins’ theory has plenty of merit.

This tour also provided wonderful opportunities for local acts. Catherine Britt, Adam Harvey, Morgan Evans and Steve Forde – all currently promoting new releases of their own, were able to utilize the fantastic production set-ups for 2 of the shows each and performed fantastic sets before the dynamic duo hit the stage.

Everyone involved in this tour should be congratulated. From Chugg Entertainment and Rob Potts Entertainment Edge for having the balls and the cash to take the plunge and do this and give our industry such a massive boost, through to the artists themselves, their management and tour road crew. They all came to this country and performed these shows with a spirit which ensured that everyone involved got a positive outcome from the tour.

The success of this tour will undoubtable mean that other international country stars will now take the plunge and tour out here. So bring on the next one!