In October 2011, Harry was asked by Sugarscape.com when 1D would be visiting Australia. He told them, ‘It’s somewhere that we’ve all always wanted to go, and this whole thing’s given us the chance. Hopefully, we’ll be there soon and we’ll kind of come and say hi to everyone. It’s incredibly flattering to know there are people in Australia who are supporting us.’
Six months later, Harry had his wish. He didn’t know it then but Australia was to become one of the boys’ favourite countries to visit. The first time they went as a band, 300 fans waited for them to arrive at Sydney airport. It was so chaotic at the airport that, for their own safety, they had to leave via a loading dock; this left the fans feeling terribly upset. The boys felt awful and Niall tweeted, ‘Australia we’re here, sorry we couldn’t come out, airport police said it wasn’t safe, we really wanted to come out and say hi, cya soon [sic]’. They were taken to the Inter-Continental hotel, where they would be staying for the duration of their visit to Sydney. The boys had the penthouse suite right at the top of the building and, much to the delight of fans below, Zayn appeared without a top on and Liam gave them a wave.
Rihanna stayed in the same hotel as them, as she was in Australia to promote her movie Battleship. Louis and Zayn actually sneaked out and tried to go to her première without letting their security team know, but it didn’t go to plan. Zayn explained to the Sun, ‘We did sneak away from our hotel at about 8 p.m. – it wasn’t like it was 3 o’clock in the morning. But it was a bit like a smash-and-grab – we thought let’s go for it! Sadly we didn’t really know where we were going and we just kind of wandered around for a bit and got lost.’
On their first day in Australia, the boys went on board a yacht in Sydney Harbour and had lots of fun swimming in the water. The paparazzi took lots of photos of them in their swimming trunks. In the days that followed, Liam and Louis had the opportunity to go surfing a few times, which they really enjoyed. ‘When I first started surfing properly that was in Australia,’ Louis told thehothits.com a few months later. ‘So surfing was great there. I just love Australia as a place. Everyone must say that that visits. It’s such an amazing place.’ He admitted that he would have liked have gone to Australia for a holiday before the tour in 2013 but couldn’t because he would have needed at least two weeks off as it’s so far away.
While Liam was in Australia, his girlfriend at the time, Danielle Peazer, looked after his pet turtles. He admitted during an interview on Australian talk show The Project that he had had to split them up because one turtle had bitten off the other one’s foot!
Going to Australia with the boys gave Niall the opportunity to spend some time with some of his family who live over there, and he also had a blast with Harry, Liam, Louis and Zayn. After his first day in Australia, Niall told his followers on Twitter: ‘See you at sunrise tomorrow, OZ directioners! Off t sleep! Goodnight, great first day down under, gotta good feelin about this trip’.
During their trip, they performed a sell-out show in Sydney, visited Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, and Niall got to try Vegemite for the first time on the TV show Sunrise. Niall didn’t like the taste one bit and spat it out on a napkin that Zayn passed to him. After they’d come off air, he tweeted, ‘Can clearly say vegemite is horrible! Like tryin’ new stuff though’.
The Sunrise presenters came up with the idea that they could raise some money for the charity Youngcare if they put Niall’s leftovers on eBay. The item’s listing read, ‘The item is perishable and although we will package it so that tampering is evident, we do not advise that it is consumed. We will not be including the mouthful that Niall spat out – because that’s just gross.’
They put the starting bid at $0.99 (64p) and straightaway bids started flying in – in a short time, the bids had reached $1,000 (£648). This was an incredible result, but things didn’t stop there – the final bid was an unbelievable $100,000 (£65,000).
It was really hard for the boys to leave Australia after their first visit because they had had such a fantastic time but they’d been missing their families over in the UK and Ireland, so needed to see them asap. On their flight home from Australia in April 2012, Niall didn’t feel well, tweeting, ‘Not feeling the best! sore all over! under the weather as they say!’
Later on, he tweeted, ‘Food poisoning not good!’
Once the boys landed in England, it took them a few days to get used to the 10-hour time difference. They all wanted to chill out and catch up on sleep; they’d had a heavy few weeks.
One of the boys’ Australian highlights didn’t actually take place in Australia!
When Harry, Niall, Liam, Louis and Zayn found out that X Factor Australia judge Ronan Keating wanted them to help him choose which groups he should take through to the live shows in the 2012 series, they were speechless. It was a great opportunity and a real honour, as Ronan could have chosen any band or singer in the world to help him.
Ronan chose the boys because he knew they would know exactly how the groups were feeling, and because One Direction are the biggest boyband in the world. Harry, Niall, Liam, Louis and Zayn also prove that a group can succeed after appearing on The X Factor. Rather than the boys having to fly over to Australia, Ronan and the groups came to London for the ‘home visits’ round.
When Ronan introduced One Direction to his groups, the contestants clapped and cheered. They had a quick chat and then it was down to business: one by one, each of the groups had to walk onto the stage and perform one song. Ronan and the boys then discussed what they thought of each performance and then, after all the groups had performed, said who they thought should go through. The boys really liked a good-looking girl group (one of the singers had winked at Harry during their performance) but the groups they decided to put through with Ronan were two boybands and a mixed group: The Collective, who sang Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’; Fourtunate, who sang Beyoncé’s ‘End of Time’; and What About Tonight, who sang ‘Gives You Hell’ by The All-American Rejects.
Louis told thehothits.com afterwards, ‘You know what, that X Factor experience was actually one of my favourite things that we’ve done as a band. We did feel a little bit strange to be offering advice; you know we’ve only been in the game, if you can call it that, for two years. So it was interesting giving advice, but such an honour to be involved in it all.’
The Collective actually made it to the series final but finished in third place, behind runner-up Jason Owen and winner Samantha Jade. One Direction pre-recorded a special performance of ‘Little Things’ that was shown during the final show.
Getting the opportunity to take their Up All Night tour to Australia and New Zealand in April 2012 was a dream come true for Liam, who had been wanting the tour to go global for a while. He had tweeted months before the dates were announced, ‘I want to tour more everywhere all over the world im gunna [sic] miss touring when this one finishes #worldtour’.
The boys’ loved their shows in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Auckland and Wellington. Louis gave a special message to UK and Irish fans in the 1D newsletter, saying, ‘G’day! We’re sooo excited to have made it to Australia on tour and excited to be in Sydney, Melbourne and now Brisbane. I really enjoyed getting up early to go surfing! So it’s got to be said I am LOVING Australia! Missing the food back home though. Big love, Louis :o)X.’
When their 2013 World Tour was announced, Australian and Kiwi fans were excited to see that they had been given more dates: with their first tour, there had only been five dates in total but with the second tour, there were 24!
The fourth and final release from 1D’s first album Up All Night was ‘More than This’, and it was released first in Australia on 25 May 2012. It premiered on The Today Show in Australia. The video simply showed them performing the song on tour. It was released in the UK and America a month later. It reached number 49 in the Australian charts, number 39 in Ireland and number 86 in the UK.
1D superfan Isabella came up with the idea of fans filming their own version of ‘One Thing’, dressed in similar outfits to Harry, Niall, Liam, Louis and Zayn. She organised and directed the video with her friends playing the band members: her friend Steph playing Harry, Emilie playing Zayn, Eesha playing Louis, Georgie playing Liam and Isabella playing Niall. More than 20 other fans came along too and the video they made was edited by their friend Jodie. To see the video, search on YouTube for ‘One Direction – One Thing Australian Edition’.
Tahnee is 18 and from Sydney. She was one of One Direction’s first fans in Australia after she found out about them through Tumblr when they were on The X Factor. She loves being an Australian Directioner because, she says, ‘We are just so laid back and carefree. We love their music so much.’
Tahnee organised the first ever 1D flash mob and it took place on 21 January 2012 at Circular Quay. A flash mob is a large group of people who suddenly start performing a dance routine in an unexpected place and then quickly disperse. Tahnee explains what happened.
‘I came up with the idea of doing the flash mob and suggested it to a couple of people via Twitter to see if anyone was interested in helping me, then I met Mary and Emilie, who became organisers with me. It all started with an idea that was meant to be a joke and we never expected it to turn out the way it did and to attract the amount of attention we received. A hundred fans signed up straight away and said they wanted to take part in the first ever 1D flash mob – I knew then that we had to do it as it would promote One Direction in Australia and hopefully result in the boys visiting Australia for the first time.’
Tahnee created a mix of the Up All Night album and, together with her sister, Ashleigh, came up with some dance routines to go with it. She set up dates for everyone to meet up and rehearse – everything had to be really slick on the day or it would look like a mess. The rehearsals took place no matter what the weather: they practised in the rain, in hail and in blistering heat (40 degrees Celsius to be exact!).
‘By the date of the actual flash mob, we had about 200 girls turn up,’ Tahnee says. ‘We went through the routine – amazingly everyone knew what they were doing. It was such an amazing feeling to see something that you have organised actually come to life. Although there was a thunderstorm, we managed to do the flash mob in one piece and the result was pretty awesome.
‘The day after we published the video on YouTube, we had over 10,000 views and collectively with another unofficial video, over 30,000 views! We were interviewed by magazines and newspapers, featured on many well-known websites and blogs – and we even got to do a segment on a radio station based on the flash mob for two months. On top of all of that, Harry spoke about it on Irish radio (Spin), Liam spoke about it on Australian radio (Nova 96.9) and Niall spoke about it in a TV interview with Channel 9’s The Today Show (Australia), where they previewed our flash mob on live television. And to make things even better, family members and friends of the boys tweeted us about the video, saying they loved it.
‘After our video went viral, we began receiving a lot of questions from other fans asking how we did it, if they could use our routine and our music mix. A couple of months and 500,000 views later, flash mobs from other countries began popping up (everywhere from America, Philippines, Brazil, UK, Boston, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Thailand, Greece, Spain, Mexico … you name the country, they did one!). It was so overly done that the boys’ official Wikipedia states, “Directioners are known for doing flash mobs in honour of the One Direction.” It’s pretty amazing to think we started a phenomenon! It’s also great to see fans coming together with just this common interest and become such close friends. In my personal experiences, the girls I have met for the flash mob last year are honestly my best friends to this day. It’s amazing to think how this flash mob let me meet so many amazing people and to have the opportunity for all of us to keep in contact.’
A year after the original flash mob, Tahnee and her friends decided to do another flash mob. It was even better than the original – check it out by searching for ‘One Direction Sydney Flash Mob Take 2’ on YouTube.
Mary is 19 and from Sydney. She has met One Direction three times. Mary co-organised the original flash mob and was staying at the same hotel as One Direction the first time they came to Sydney.
‘We’d found out that they were a few floors above us and so we decided to ride the elevator in the hopes of catching a glimpse of them,’ she says. ‘We’d been floating around the hotel at this point, which was roughly two o’clock in the morning. I’d received a phone call from one of my friends, who was in the lobby telling us to get in the elevator quickly because two of the boys (Harry and Zayn) had arrived back at the hotel after a night out. We did so and we were lucky enough to stop them for a conversation. We asked them about the flash mob and they both recalled watching it and said how much they loved it! At this point, I was completely over the moon with the fact that they actually remembered it and that they really loved it! But the next day we were even MORE fortunate because we got the chance to meet Niall and Liam in the gym. By chance, we went up to the gym and saw them working out in front of the mirrors. We spoke to them briefly and they talked about how thrilled they were to have seen so many fans in Australia when they thought nobody knew them here; both of them loved the flash mob too! It was definitely one amazing experience I will cherish for the rest of my life!’
Catie-Rose is 13 and is a huge One Direction fan. She lives in Brisbane, Australia with her mother Colleen, dad Anthony, sister Alice and brothers Henry, Edward, William and Max. Her story starts in November 2008 – before One Direction had even been formed. Catie-Rose’s mother was seriously ill and had to have many operations on her brain. Catie-Lee was a big support to her dad and helped look after her brothers. Her little brother Max was only a baby but Catie-Rose would change his nappies and feed him, help around the house and help her brothers with their homework without complaining. She never asked for anything in return, but her dad Anthony promised her that he would repay her one day.
Two years later, Catie-Rose went to her parents and said that if the band One Direction ever came to Australia, she would love it if they got her tickets to see them. Anthony made it his mission from that day on to do everything in his power to fulfil that wish. As soon as Harry, Niall, Zayn, Louis and Liam announced an Australian tour, Anthony got ready. The day the tickets went on sale he queued for hours and hours but, before he got to the front of the queue, it was announced that the tickets had all sold out. Anthony was devastated when he had to tell Catie-Rose that no tickets were available.
He didn’t want to give up, so decided that he would have to try to win some tickets on the radio, where they had One Direction competitions running. He walked around for weeks with his finger on the radio station’s redial number so that he could be the first person to ring to win the tickets, but he missed out time and time again. Then a competition was announced asking fans to make a shrine to One Direction, and the winner would be flown to Sydney to attend a rooftop party with the boys. Anthony and Catie-Rose decided to work together and came up with the fantastic idea of having ‘shoe boxes’ showing the various stages of One Directions growth. They submitted it and waited. Several days passed and, just as they were giving up hope, Anthony got a call from the radio station saying they wanted to speak to Catie-Rose on air!
That night they called and told her that her shrine had made the standby list and she was a finalist. Her whole family burst into tears of joy that finally she might get her wish but, on the night the winner was announced, they found out that Catie-Rose’s shrine hadn’t been chosen. Anthony and Catie-Rose were devastated, as it had been their last chance to win tickets.
Even though Catie-Rose couldn’t see the boys in concert, her family decided to go on a mission with her to track them down when they arrived in Australia. They flew to Sydney with her cousin Maddie and booked into a hotel near to where the boys were staying. All they wanted was for Catie-Rose to catch a glimpse of them but, after four days, they hadn’t seen them once.
The Brisbane leg of the One Direction tour came and they were due to perform on the Wednesday night and fly out the next day. Catie-Rose asked her dad if they could go and sit outside their hotel in the car just in case they drove by. Anthony agreed and, after waiting for three hours, the boys’ black vans pulled out of the hotel and Anthony, Catie-Rose and Maddie gave chase. Catie-Rose was screaming and screaming that they were so close to them. They followed the black vans through the city to a ‘secret’ location where a photo shoot was to take place. They saw the boys get out of their van and walk into the building.
They decided to stay put because they knew Harry, Niall, Zayn, Louis and Liam had to come out sooner or later. No other fans had turned up because they had all been on foot and had no idea where the boys were going. Four hours passed and the One Direction minders came out and said that, because there were so few people there, the boys were going to come out and meet them outside. Anthony was overjoyed.
The big moment came and the boys emerged from the building. Harry made a beeline for Catie-Rose and a news reporter stepped in to ask Harry some questions. Catie-Rose held out her iPhone case and Harry asked one of his minders for a pen; he signed Catie-Rose’s phone case and interrupted the interview to give Catie-Rose a hug! At this very moment Anthony realised that he had by far fulfilled his promise to Catie, and the emotion of seeing her happiness overwhelmed him and he broke down in tears. The other boys came over to Catie-Rose and Maddie, and also signed her phone case and a sandwich board. Then the boys were whisked away into the waiting vans and that was the end – or so they thought! All the while, the TV news crew were filming Anthony crying and it appeared on the TV news that night. The next morning Catie-Rose’s family were watching The Today Show (Australia’s favourite breakfast TV show) and the clip of Anthony crying came on as the best news story. The hosts of the show said if anyone knew who this dad was, they should contact them straight away. Anthony contacted them and what happened next was truly remarkable.
They rushed the whole family to a location where a film crew were standing by to interview them live on Australian national TV. Anthony told them about his ‘journey’ with Catie-Rose, how they had tried everything to win tickets and how on the last day they actually got to meet them. The host of the show tried to get Anthony to cry again by saying that they would arrange tickets to the following year’s One Direction concert; he didn’t cry but later said he came very close. They also said that they have named Anthony ‘Australia’s Best Dad’.
To see the clip of Anthony crying or to see the family’s interview on the news, just Google ‘Australia’s Best Dad 2012’. You can follow Anthony on Twitter @AnthonyLee59. All five boys follow him and he has more than 70,000 fans. Meeting One Direction has changed the Lee family for ever.