John Farnham wasn’t there. But at this emotional concert he was everywhere

“JF”, read the raw ink inscription on the left wrist of the woman beside me. Her name was Rebecca, and she reckoned she’d seen John Farnham at least 50 times since her mum took her to a show as a 10-year-old in the Whispering Jack years.

Rebecca got her first tattoo that morning, she told me, right after she heard the news that Farnham wasn’t well enough to attend the evening’s sold-out celebration concert at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena.

Nobody who managed to snag a ticket to this massive, all-star arena gig could have felt otherwise. Despite handling the not inconsiderable demands of his repertoire to the likes of Jimmy Barnes, Kate Ceberano, Tina Arena and Richard Marx, the absent legend was with us in every sky-piercing note of the three-hour, 26-song show.

Coldplay’s Chris Martin, a surprise guest beamed in from the UK, made the distinction plain. You’re the Voice rhymed with “you’re God’s choice” in a solo acoustic comedy tune called Better Singer Than Me .

The magnificent pipes of Celine Dion took You’re the Voice stratospheric in another remote cross from Paris, but as she stressed with touching affection, even she owes a little something to the “deep inspiration” of her “dear friend John”.

It was Farnham himself, via flashback footage, who set the impossible pitch of the opening song. Age of Reason sprawled into a 10-minute medley as Jon Stevens, Jessica Mauboy, Jack Jones, Mahalia Barnes and harmony quartet Human Nature filed in turn down the vast, Vegas-style centre-stage staircase.

The concert brought together around 120 performers, including Farnham’s band and backing singers, a 38-piece orchestra, choirs, marching drum line and bagpipe ensemble under the musical direction of his longtime keyboard player and arranger Chong Lim.

The firepower put a bomb under Ross Wilson’s Touch of Paradise and Amorosi’s Playing to Win , but Lim’s arrangements were versatile enough to strip Keith Urban’s rendition of Burn for You down to spare guitar and piano.

Mark Vincent’s operatic You’ll Never Walk Alone , a tribute to Farnham’s performance for Australian troops in East Timor in 1999 was introduced via video by Major General Peter Cosgrove who asserted that “John Farnham is woven into the fabric of Australian culture”.

No less an indication of that was the Bunnings sausage sizzle outside: part of the event’s fundraising drive for Head and Neck Cancer Australia. As sobering as the news that Farnham now requires 24-hour care had been, the sense of an immense national celebration seemed to radiate from the venue like the smoke of a million barbecues.

With all those songs to sing, affectionate stage banter was wisely limited, but good luck if you were taking a drink every time a performer shouted “I love you John!” as they left the stage. Each approached Farnham’s Everest from a different direction. Most shared the freakish ability to make superhuman vocal athletics feel conversational, but never once was the star of the show in doubt.

German-Australian cabaret diva Hans brought the comedic sparkle necessary to tackle Sadie the Cleaning Lady.