They say time heals all wounds, with this year marking two decades since a generation of young Australians learnt the meaning of the phrase “daylight robbery.”
But 20 years on, it’s clear that Shannon Noll’s 2003 loss to Guy Sebastian, for the inaugural Australian Idol crown, did little to harm the singer’s longevity. Winner of the top prize or not, Nollsie – as he is affectionately known across the nation – is still kicking. Having proudly outlived the expiry date of almost every Australian music and TV personality of that era, the legend of Shannon Noll continues to write itself.
Nollsie’s reputation proceeds him. His anthems still command the pubs, clubs, and karaoke bars with a conviction that’ll forever rival Australian greats like John Farnham and Jimmy Barnes. But when the man walks into a room – or we walk onto his soundstage for Uber Eats’ latest commercial – he’s not one to expect you, the guy next to you, or your grandma to know or care who he is.
Layered head to toe in black Wrangler denim (or similar) and draped in enough wearable silver to rival Jack Sparrow, Nollsie is grinning ear to ear for the cameras as we walk onto set. It’s not a forced smile, either. He’s clearly just happy to be there.
Despite coming out of the gates strong in his early days, by 2015, the man had naturally dipped into his twilight era. The days of knockout multi-platinum albums were well and truly in the rearview mirror, although one can’t deny his musical achievements up until this point, which also included 10 consecutive top-10 singles. Remarkable feats in their own right for a country fella who got a leg-up from national television with a mixture of talent and luck.
And as the years rolled by, Nollsie grew into a family man who unlocked the simple pleasures of life out in the sticks, raising kids in a way he knew all too well from his upbringing in the tiny New South Wales country town of Condobolin. He still relished any opportunity to pick up the mic, but life went on.
Then came the renaissance that no one saw coming. A social media frenzy that danced the line between admiration, trolling, and classic Aussie humour. An unassuming Facebook post back in 2016 ignited Nollsie’s rebound to the forefront of Australia’s pop culture zeitgeist.
It’s not even worth asking how or why it happened, it just did, and followers fanned the flames with enthusiasm. The everyday upload and harmless caption opened the floodgates to a sea of playful comments, with each sexual innuendo attempting to one-up the last.
This carried on for years. From photos of tractors to pet ponies, commenters would mimic each other and take aim at the day’s post before ending with “nah just yanking ya chain cobba!” Wherever the man went, the hype train followed. All the while Nollsie kept his followers guessing. Was he playing into it? Did he ever realise he’d essentially been ‘memeafied’?
Then, like magic, the gigs started rolling in again, the tickets sold out once more, and brands grabbed onto the coat-tails of an Australiana revival story original ’03 fans could one day tell their kids about.
Jump forward five or so years and this bizarre sequence of events has brought us face to face with the man himself after the camera shutters fell silent on set with Uber Eats. Following a quick time-out for an obligatory dart and a few how-ya-goin pleasantries later, we were soon chatting about our favourite pubs, his warm-up routines, and a surprisingly impressive golf handicap.
Catch Shannon alongside Mark Philippoussis, Abbie Chatfield, and the Jenner mother/daughter duo in the extended cut of Uber’s Almost Almost Anything campaign, which dropped today, and then watch our yarn with Nollsie below.
