Amy Shark opened a stripped-back tribute to Jai Arrow and Nathan Charles before Sunday night’s NRL Grand Final.
The South Sydney player and former Wallaby, both diagnosed with motor neurone disease this year, completed a lap of honour at Stadium Australia as Shark sang ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ a cappella.
Dave Gleeson followed with 4 Non Blondes’ ‘What’s Up?’, before Grinspoon’s Phil Jamieson closed with Tina Turner’s ‘The Best’, a song that has belonged to rugby league for more than three decades. Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers drummer Neve van Boxsel and Peking Duk’s Reuben Styles joined them, with Styles appearing after the duo had said earlier in the day that it would not perform at the game.
As The Music reported, the segment replaced the scale normally expected from a Grand Final entertainment slot with a direct focus on Arrow and Charles. There was no attempt to turn the tribute into a conventional headline set.
That restraint mattered. The music accompanied the lap rather than competing with it, and Shark’s unaccompanied opening left the stadium with nowhere else to look.
The performance followed weeks of uncertainty around the pre-game booking. Reports had linked Tones And I to the event before her team said US touring commitments prevented her from accepting the offer. NRL chairman Peter V’landys then teased an undisclosed 11-minute performance. The choice of ‘The Best’ carried its own history. Turner’s song became inseparable from the game through the NRL’s late-1980s and early-1990s campaigns, so Jamieson’s closing number could summon league history without needing a speech. Placed after Shark’s bare opening and Gleeson’s singalong, it gave the segment a clear arc: private reflection, collective voice, then a familiar piece of rugby league memory. The arrangement stayed simple enough that the symbolism never crowded out Arrow and Charles.
Video of the tribute is available through Nine. The surprise was not a mystery international act or a late burst of production. It was an Australian line-up used with enough restraint to keep the two men at the centre of the stadium.
