Cryptic billboards in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane are connecting a series of numbers, songs and career milestones to Powderfinger, while a new Instagram account appears to be spelling out the band’s history one clue at a time.
by Paul Cashmere
Powderfinger have given fans their clearest hint yet that something is happening, with cryptic billboards appearing across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and a new Instagram account pointing directly towards the band’s catalogue, lineup and final show.
The campaign centres around the Instagram account @thereturnoftheelectrichorsemen, a name that points to “(The Return Of) The Electric Horseman”, the closing track on Powderfinger’s 1996 album Double Allergic. Its first message, “I see your signs on the street now. Do you?”, also appears to reference the opening lyric of “My Happiness”.
Five horse emojis appear in the account’s biography, another apparent reference to the five members of Powderfinger: Bernard Fanning, Darren Middleton, Ian Haug, John Collins and Jon Coghill.
The billboards add another layer. Among the numbers being displayed are “ALBUMS: 7”, “MEMBERS: 5”, “CREW: 235” and “FLIGHTS: 33”, figures that align with Powderfinger’s recorded career. Other clues include 18 ARIA Awards and references to the band’s appearances in the triple j Hottest 100.
Most conspicuously, the campaign includes the date 13.11.2010.
That was the night Powderfinger played their final public concert at Brisbane’s Riverstage, concluding the Sunsets Farewell Tour and bringing 21 years of the band to an end. The farewell tour had taken the group around Australia and played to more than 300,000 people.
Powderfinger announced the split in April 2010, describing the decision as the end of their recording and touring career after more than two decades. The band said they had reached a point where they felt they had said what they wanted to say as a musical group.
The decision was not simply about running out of commercial momentum. There were family commitments, personal disagreements and the accumulated pressures of maintaining a five-person creative partnership.
Bernard Fanning offered perhaps the clearest explanation years later when he described Powderfinger as a team in which the five members had an equal voice. “You had to do a lot of taking one for the team,” he said in 2024. “And that was just one too many.”
That history makes the current speculation more significant than an anniversary campaign alone.
The five members did eventually work together again, but under very different circumstances. In 2019 they spent time together at LaCueva in the Byron Bay hinterland while preparing material for the 20th anniversary edition of Odyssey Number Five. That session eventually led to Unreleased, an album of previously unheard recordings spanning material from 1998 through to 2009.
Then came One Night Lonely in May 2020.
The five members performed from separate locations during the COVID-19 lockdown for a streamed charity concert supporting Beyond Blue and Support Act. More than $500,000 was raised.
It was an official Powderfinger reunion, but the circumstances were deliberately limited. The band called it a one-off performance, and the title itself was intended to reinforce that message. It was also not a conventional concert, with the five musicians performing from their respective locations rather than sharing a stage.
If the current campaign does lead to live shows, it would represent the first time the five members have reunited on a physical stage for a proper Powderfinger concert since the Riverstage farewell in 2010.
There has been little indication over the years that a full return was inevitable. In 2023, Darren Middleton still spoke of the possibility in terms of uncertainty, while the five members have continued with their own musical and personal lives.
Yet the relationships within the group appear to have remained strong. Fanning said in 2024 that the five members were still friends and that their relationship was better than it had been during their years as a working band.
That may be the most important piece of the reunion puzzle. Powderfinger did not separate because the friendship was destroyed. They separated because five people had reached the end of what they wanted to do together.
Now, 16 years after their final show, a campaign using their songs, their history, their five-member lineup and the exact date of their farewell is asking fans to look again.
Powderfinger have not officially announced a reunion, tour or new project at the time of publication. But if the clues are genuine, the next chapter may be about to answer the question the band left hanging in 2010: what happens when the five of them decide there is something more to say?
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