Aucklanders will benefit from the collapse of the Gisborne Millennium Concert now kiwi music icons Split Enz look likely to play here on New Year’s Eve.

Confirmation looks certain to come in the next few days. The band is in negotiations with promoters, Frontier Touring, to see if a concert at Bastion Point is feasible.

Split Enz's agent Ian Magan is reported as saying the band is disappointed about the collapse of the Gisborne event.

Gisborne will however still get to usher in the new century with style. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra are tipped to play a free concert on the beach near Gisborne after the Government announced it will fund $1 million toward the costs.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>