The family of INXS singer Michael Hutchence, whose suicide shocked the music world last November and abruptly ended the band's plans to tour in celebration of 20 years together, is planning a memorial for him on the anniversary of his death.
The event will be followed in January by a tribute concert for the Australian band's charismatic frontman.
The Nov. 22 service will be held in the Northern Chapel of Sydney, Australia's Northern Suburbs Memorial
Park, where Hutchence's funeral took place last year. Members of INXS, as well as 3,000 fans, are expected to attend the memorial, according to the late singer's father, Kelland Hutchence.
"This will be the one and only [memorial event]," Kelland Hutchence said. "We won't do this every year. It's the first memorial service as a tribute to my darling son and his great achievement in the music industry. That's what it's all about."
The 5 p.m. service will include the unveiling of a memorial wall the singer's father has constructed in his son's honor, although he preferred to keep specifics about the wall private until its unveiling.
The 37-year-old vocalist on such INXS hits as "Devil Inside" and "Suicide Blonde" committed suicide by hanging himself in his Sydney hotel room in November 1997.
Although the singer's father was unsure whether he would speak during the memorial service, he said that Pastor Dennis Patterson, who performed last year's funeral service, will participate. "It depends how I feel," Kelland Hutchence said. "It will be a very sad and emotional time for me. This whole thing is just so sad, such a tragic loss to his mother and me, and to the music world."
INXS manager Martha Troup was careful to make a distinction between the memorial service and the tribute concert she is organizing to take place in Australia on Jan. 22.
The band will not be playing at the memorial service," Troup said, quashing published rumors that INXS would be debuting unreleased compositions during the service. Troup said the surviving members of the veteran band -- Garry Gary Beers (bass), Kirk Pengilly (guitar/saxophone) and brothers Andrew Farriss (guitar/keyboards), Jon Farriss (drums) and Tim Farriss (guitar) -- will be involved in the tribute concert, although she would not yet reveal the names of the other artists expected to participate.
"It will be more of a celebration," Troup said of the all-star show.
Kelland Hutchence added that the bandmembers had been invited to the Nov. 22 service, but he had not received any confirmation of their plans to attend. INXS have not played publicly together since Hutchence's death, which came just as the band was planning to launch an Australian tour to celebrate two decades of performing and recording.
Earlier this year, Tim Farriss spoke to the Australian newspaper the Sunday Herald about plans to honor the singer with a concert in Australia or London. The idea was to benefit Hutchence's toddler daughter, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily.
It is unclear whether the Jan. 22 concert will be held as a benefit. Last month, Troup said a New York show to coincide with the Australian tribute was possible, but she had no additional information on the U.S. show at press time.
The band's former Australian publicist, Shawn Deacon, who had called Farriss' comment premature, previously confirmed that such major artists as pop-rocker Elton John, glam-rock pioneer David Bowie, proto-punk-rocker Iggy Pop, crooner Tom Jones, Duran Duran singer Simon Le Bon and Hutchence crony/U2 singer
Bono had been approached to play a benefit show.
Troup would not confirm the participation of any of the artists.
Bono paid tribute to his departed friend at a Sydney concert in February when he dedicated the U2 song "Wake Up Dead Man" to Hutchence and played the INXS song "Never Tear Us Apart" (RealAudio excerpt) over the PA system after the show.
Troup has said that more than 40 unreleased songs by INXS exist and might still be issued. The band released nine albums over the course of its 20 years together.
A posthumous solo album by Hutchence, produced by Black Grape's Danny Saber and former Gang of Four guitarist Andy Gill, was expected to be released this year. It is currently on hold, according to Troup.