The crowd starts forming outside Michael Eather’s family home in Sandringham, in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, before the sun sets.
The first display, featuring a snow machine and children’s songs, starts at 7.30pm. At 8.45pm, the second display begins, a playlist of eight songs each with its own light show. As 10pm approaches, the last of the children go home and the crowd of adults with phones at the ready grows deeper.
They are waiting for the defining song of 2020: a remix of Victorian premier Daniel Andrews telling everyone to get on the beers.
“It has been a mega hit,” says Eather. “We’ve had people wait about an hour for it. They rock up around 9pm and we tell them that Get On The Beers is not on until 10pm. It’s definitely getting a lot of laughs.”
The Grange Road house is not the only Melbourne home to have Get On The Beers as a Christmas message. Video of the Christmas lights display at a house in Gillespie Road, Kings Park, has gone viral on social media.
IMPORTANT (sound on pls) pic.twitter.com/GfPaLsaJT6
— 🎄🎄🎄 don we now our Gordy parrel 🎄🎄🎄 (@GordyPls) December 21, 2020
Eather, 31, began making increasingly ambitious Christmas light displays as a teenager and is a light and sound production technician in the events industry.
He has been out of work due to Covid-19, which left plenty of time to build a new custom display.
“There’s about 10,000 LEDs, all computer-controlled off custom-built controllers which is all synchronised to the music,” he says. “So every song has different patterns, different images going on and it’s all completely synchronised to the music.”
The music is pumped through speakers and also broadcast on an FM transmitter so people viewing the lights from their car can tune in.
“Some of the more senior people who struggle to walk down the road, they love sitting in their car and having a bit of a dance to it as well,” he says.
Work on the display began when Melbourne was placed into its second lockdown in July. It took two months to design and build all the props and drill holes for the LED globes, and another two months to set up. The light display for each song takes about 20 to 40 hours to program. It includes images of Andrews and Donald Trump, taken from the original Get on the Beers remix video by the Australian electronic duo Mashd N Kutcher, which are flashed on the Christmas tree.
The remix is based on comments Andrews made at the start of the pandemic in March, telling Victorians that it was not appropriate to have all your mates around to your house to “get on the beers” after pubs had been shut due to Covid-19 risks. The song has a different message. It’s a favourite in the Triple J Hottest 100.
“It was a big job but there was a lot of spare time this year so it’s been good to occupy myself this year,” Eather says.
It cost several thousand dollars and took “a lot of trips to Bunnings”.
“I couldn’t give you a total price on it, I am too scared to think about that to be honest,” he says. “We figured it’s a long-term investment, we can do this display for many years to come.”
The display is being used to raise money for the Breast Cancer Foundation, through a combination of cash donations, raffle tickets and donations to an online fundraiser.
“My mum is now two years breast cancer-free so we thought we’d team up and do a nice light show and raise some money to cheer up the community this year after a bit of a miserable year it’s been for everyone,” he says.
“Get On The Beers was just a later-on idea I came up with as a bit of a laugh for the older people when they come here later on in the night. And it’s kind of gone a bit crazy, it’s a very big hit with everyone whenever they see it.”
Neighbours have been given eye masks and ear plugs, and Eather plans to deliver some beers along the street to thank them for putting up with the sharp increase in nighttime traffic. Aside from a few strings of Christmas lights, none of the other Grange Road residents have put on a show. Eather is hoping he may have inspired some change.
“It would be amazing if the whole street got on board and we could become the Ivanhoe Boulevard of the south-east,” he says.
The Boulevard Christmas lights in Melbourne’s northern suburbs attract thousands of visitors each year, but have been shut down this year due to Covid-19 rules on mass gatherings.
Eather is getting about 300 visitors a night, spread over several hours, and broadcasts a Covid safety message between each song, reminding people to stay socially distant and wear a mask.
“I haven’t had to turn the display off yet.”
