Words by Harry Webber January 14, 2022

Dear music industry, please chill the fuck out.

It’s not like your billion-dollar industry has been left out to slaughter over the past couple of years and, after copping further restrictions with little support on offer, you’re seeing a church that rakes in 80-90 million tax-free dollars annually receive preferential treatment, is it? And that we’ve seen these young Jesus superfans making a mockery of health advice and public safety?

It seems that said church is getting more attention for their event in Newcastle than the fact that their founder is facing trial over allegations that he knew about and covered up his father’s child sex abuse… but whatever at least NSW Premier Dom Perrottet says he “expects” a fine to be issued. Pretty dang harsh right? The maximum fine Hillsong could face is $55K, which is roughly the amount of revenue they rake in every five hours – ouch!

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But why are they even getting fined anyway? They church themselves, who have since been sharing plenty of pics of other activities at the camp, have said the summer camp event is “not similar to a musical festival in any way,” and “A video circulating on social media (on Thursday) reflects a few minutes of this part of the program,” it said. “We follow strict COVID procedures and adhere to government guidelines.”

Since then a bunch of Aussie musos have joined forces to form Thrillsong, a supergroup that is ready to take bookings at sporting and religious events – the only places where the NSW government has deemed it safe for them to play – in protest to the double standard. “We firmly support measures to protect our fans and communities and to safeguard our health care workers, we simply ask that if rules are made, they apply to everyone equally.” the supergroup said. “We need to be in this together.”