Photos and story Melissa Hargraves
Lismore hosted the first of Jessica Mauboy’s regional pop-up concerts last week with more than 500 fans turning up to Lismore Shopping Square to hear her sing songs from her new album Beautiful.
The free performance was precursor to her ‘End of the Earth’ tour concert that night at the Lismore Workers Club which not all of her fans were able to afford the ticket prices.
General manager of Telstra North Coast, Sue Passmore, struggled to be heard above the screaming fans as she introduced Ms Mauboy.
Ms Passmore told Echonetdaily she met Ms Mauboy prior to her Australian Idol win when she won the Telstra Road to Discovery-Tamworth country music competition, which has run for around 13 years.
‘I met Jessica at the 2004 Country Music festival as a young 13-year-old, she was very shy and very talented,’ she said.
Ms Mauboy has remained an ambassador for Telstra since winning the country music award.
Front row at the pop-up concert was Pearl and Elkie who were able to meet Ms Mauboy after the show.
They told Echonetdaily they liked Ms Mauboy because she is ‘Aboriginal and awesome’.
Also sitting front row were Jessica and Hannah who told Echonetdaily ‘Jessica is so friendly and so caring to all her fans’.
Ms Mauboy received social media backlash recently over photos she put up of herself getting fit. Hannah told Echonetdaily that ‘Jessica is proud of herself, if she is happy with herself then that is great!’
Ms Mauboy encouraged her screaming fans to sing and said ‘don’t be shame now!’
A lot of love was exchanged as fans declared theirs and Ms Mauboy reciprocated the gestures, calling the mob ‘deadly’.
Ms Mauboy made time after her performance to catch up with fans. One of those was Harmony Freeborn who babysat Jessica up in Darwin.
‘Little Jessica used to sing at about three and would belt out Whitney Houston songs so beautifully, we were all blown away from her at that age so we were so glad that she has been picked out and it has all been made possible for her because she deserves it,’ Ms Freeborn said.
Ms Mauboy said she was ‘blown away’ by the number of fans that showed up to see her at the pop-up concert and was saving her voice for the performance that night.
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