Kim’s just wild about the beach

British singer Kim Wilde didn’t waste any time in getting some sand between her toes when she arrived on the Gold Coast yesterday. It was only the second time this year the 33-year-old singer has been on a beach, thanks she says to a “minimal summer” in England.

“It’s wonderful. The last time I was on a beach was in Thailand at the beginning of the year”, she said. Beachgoers were oblivious to the pop star in their midst as she strolled along the water’s edge at Main Beach yesterday. Wilde who rose to fame with the hit single ‘Kids in America’ 12 years ago, was just one of the huge cast of overseas and Australian performers and celebrities who arrived on the Gold Coast for tonight’s Coca-Cola Australian Music Awards at Dreamworld. She will perform her latest single, a cover version of the Bee Gees hits ‘If I can’t have you’, as well as presenting two awards.

Wilde said she was going home to England for Christmas but would return to enjoy the Australian summer in February for a national concert tour. It will be her irst concert tour here depite having visited the country eight times for promotional trips.

Terence Trent d’Arby, who also arrived on the coastal strip yesterday, is also among the contingent of international artists performing at the awards night. “It’s Florida, isn’t it?”, the 31-year-old Los Angeles-based singer said as he looked out over his hotel balcony in Surfers Paradise. He has sacrificed a few days break between concert dates on a world tour to be at the awards, before travelling to Japan and then returning for an Australian tour in February. D’Arby said he was “born travelling” because his father was an evangelist, but admitted he felt strange being on the other side of the world for the first time.

“You guys are so far away from everyone else. I mean, 22 hours sittting in a plane. I’ve had relationships that didn’t last as long as that flight. Why don’t you guys lease this continent and move closer to everybody else and call that Australia?”

Other performers at the awards include Jeremy Jordan, Sonia Dada, Andrew Strong, John Farnham, Jimmy Barnes, Diesel, Deborah Conway, The Badloves and Jon Stevens. The ceremony will be broadcast live across Australia on Channel 10 and via satellite to New Zealand from the Dreamworld Amphitheatre. The Triple M Radio Network will simulcast the event.