JD Fortune
The Governor Hindmarsh
20th October 2026
People love a cover band.
There’s nothing like heading down to your least favourite pub to see the Aldi version of your favourite band smashing out a cut-price rendition of the soundtrack of your life.
For the cost of a counter meal, or less, revel in the experience that is Ron Thomas and Matchbox Thirty playing an 87% correct version of ‘Push’ while you knock back a few house whites and check your Keno numbers.
Then, there’s the Tribute Act. Ultra rehearsed acts doing all-guns-blazing, choreographed to the hilt renditions of big name bands, complete with genius names like Proxy Music and Nearly Dan.
Tonight we’re at The Gov for something a little different.
This is JD Fortune Rocks INXS, a tribute show that features the aforementioned Mr Fortune, a bona fide, card carrying ex-member of INXS who both performed and recorded with the band from 2005 after winning the spot on reality TV show Rockstar INXS.
INXS is obviously a band that captured the hearts, minds and loins of many of the 60+ crew in tonight’s audience, it’s a big crowd and many have been out to see Canadian JD Fortune on previous jaunts, in addition to seeing the real deal INXS with the mercurial Michael Hutchence back in the day.
Proceedings are kicked off by local Jason Sym Choon and his acoustic. And a stool.
The stool offers suitable support while Jason works his way through a handful of Oz Rock™ staples from Paul Kelly, Angus & Julia Stone, Gotye and more in campfire singalong style. Jason is better known for his metal lineage, currently fronting Nakatomi Plaza, and while that’s probably a better space for his talents, the assembled masses are grateful of the bread sticks while awaiting the main meal.
Ushered on stage to AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’, with the crowd ‘na na na na na na-ing’ their lungs out, our headliners backing band wait somewhat awkwardly for their valiant leader to arrive.
As a come-on song, it’s probably more energy than most bands can actually tackle from the get-go, made apparent when JD Fortune hits the stage hard and the band kick into a fumbly ‘Suicide Blonde’. That said, JD brings it from the first note.
As a performer, he must have been the inspiration for The Killers paean to male confidence ‘The Man’…there’s gas in the tank, there’s money in the bank…you’re looking at THE MAN.
While Michael Hutchence channelled the lithe theatricality of Mick Jagger, tempered by his suburban Australian upbringing, Canadian JD Fortune brings a heavy-duty confidence and unbridled masculinity to the stage. He has real fans too, with a few ribald comments aimed at the stage from the day-one INXS fans who would have been teenagers when these songs were first performed in the early ’80s.
As a tribute act, it’s hard to ask for a stronger set of classic pop tunes, built for crowd response, stage maneuvers and theatrics. There’s no arguing with the pedigree of albums that dominated the airwaves in the ’80s & early ’90s, especially releases like Kick which contributes a good chunk of the biggest tracks (‘Mystify’, ‘New Sensation’, ‘Devil Inside’ etc).
Fortune has a harder vocal edge, an LA strip element that roughens the edges, but he has control and range to deliver the songs with a connection that comes from being chosen as Hutchences successor.
There are two tracks from Switch, the album released in 2005 that Fortune co-wrote and performed, release 8 years after Hutchence’s last album Elegantly Wasted.
‘Pretty Vegas’ was a proper comeback track for the band and Fortune owns this and ‘Afterglow’ from the album, fitting them neatly in alongside the earlier classics.
It’s the huge numbers like ‘By My Side’ and (obviously) ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ that get the crowd tearing up. They’re performed in workmanlike fashion by the backing band, who are definitely more pub than stadium, but given every ounce of sweat and spunk from the frontman.
As a tribute, JD Fortune Rocks INXS is more about the spectacle of Fortune than a note-perfect facsimile of the original, but when you’ve donned your original t-shirt and enjoyed half a bottle of Sauv Blanc with the girls, it’s exactly ‘What You Need’*
*Pun, most definitely, intended.
