4:49p.m. 20 March 2008

Photo Gallery: Newsboys at Easterfest

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They have played some of the biggest music festivals in the world, but former Sunshine Coast band Newsboys like nothing more than returning to the Aussie crowd which will go wild for them at Easterfest in Toowomba on Saturday night.

The band, which started in a garage in Mooloolaba, was recently named Australian Christian music's Artist of the Year, an honour they value as much as the three Grammy nominations they have had or the string of more than 25 number one hits.

Despite being based just out of Nashville, the Newsboys still consider themselves very much an Aussie band with lead singer Peter Furler delighted to have been given the Australian accolade after so many years.

"It's something we are proud of (being Australian),'' Furler said.

"Aussies have done some fantastic things and from such a small nation there have been so many achievements," he said.

“It’s where we cut our teeth and you can’t forget your roots."

In recent years, Newsboys has been a regular entry on Business Review Weekly's list of top earning Australian overseas artists.

The band is well known for some of the most spectacular shows in music with 33 metre catwalks, drum risers which spin the drummer upside down, and a pod which takes Furler about 10 metres into the air above the crowd.

Three of the band, including former Woombye resident Duncan Phillips (drums) and Melbourne guitarist Paul Colman, formerly of Paul Coleman Trio, are Australian while the fourth member Jeff Frankenstein, on keyboards, is from Detroit.

Furler said he was particularly looking forward to playing the Toowoomba show after headlining what was the AGMF (Australian Gospel Music Festival) last year.

“Coming down to Easterfest is really exciting to me," he told thedaily.com.au

“It is such a fantastic festival.

“I have played a lot of festivals around the world from Friendship festivals in Morocco to a new age festival in Israel and I’m really expecting great things (in Toowoomba)," Furler said.

“Aussie crowds are one of a kind. I’m sure that every band that comes through there will say the same thing.

“I think it is one of the best crowds I have played to so I am expecting really big things," he said.

That’s high praise from the lead singer of a band which regularly headlines huge Christian music festivals attended by more than 100,000 over a weekend.

The Aussie tour includes Easter festival in Toowoomba (March 22), as well as concerts in Melbourne (March 23) Adelaide (March 27) and Sydney (March 29).

Furler said he was keen to bring the hugely successful Go show down under with every song in the show set having been a number one hit.

For more information to the Easterfest site or the Newsboys' site

Don't miss out our revealing insight into Peter Furler's life at the top of rock'n'roll in Saturday's Daily

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