Live Reviews

After multiple postponements, one wouldn’t be surprised if Mallrat decided to cancel her run of two shows at the Forum in Melbourne. Thankfully, she persevered and we were finally able to get a taste of her emphatic pop sounds once again at the Forum on Tuesday night. To make sure the evening started off with…

The eminent Jameson House of Rounds returned for a night of whiskey, food and music at iconic bar The Rails in Byron Bay on Saturday, 4 December – and you can bet that we were there for every bit of it. As New South Wales emerges from lockdown, Jameson House of Rounds provided a unique…

“This venue is daunting to play,” admitted Spacey Jane lead singer Caleb Harper early in their maiden set at Perth’s revered Red Hill Auditorium on Saturday night. Given Western Australia’s hard border, Perth-based Spacey Jane have gigged in their hometown countless times before, but playing at Red Hill is something else altogether, as a wonderful,…

When you’re stuck playing to the same audience over and over, it’s easy to slip into a mode of monotony, which has been a challenge thrust upon lots of WA musicians including artist Michael Dunstan with Premier Mark McGowan’s hard border. Of course, the rebuttal is at least they get to play but that doesn’t…

Perth surfie punk-rock trio Pretty Uglys have been generating lots of hype lately, fueled by popular new single “Your Shade” prompting a strong turnout to their Saturday night show in their hometown. Pretty Uglys’ tunes are gritty punk but it’s grunge-y yet summery, loose with a surfer twang, heavy on driving bass, unrelenting drums and…

Returning to play a hometown show for the first time since releasing their stellar second album, Middle Kids brought more than their A-game to Sydney’s City Recital Hall as they tore through a career-spanning set and set a new high standard for what you should expect from the band. Opening up the night was The…

There is absolutely nothing better than spending National Reconciliation Week with my Bundjalung brother Budjerah as he performed to a sold-out crowd at Sydney’s Lansdowne. The 19-year-old brought along Liyah Knight and Kirsten Salty to open the night – both ones to watch for their performance prowess and hooky tunes. I’d caught Kirsten over a…

Aussie alt-rockers The Rubens are yet another band who’ve been denied the opportunity to tour their latest album due to COVID restrictions, but they are making up for it right now. In fact, The Rubens have been making hay while the sun shines, travelling the length of the country in support of their latest studio…

Hot on the heals of the release of his debut EP in early April, EJ Worland hit up Mary’s Underground in Sydney on Saturday night to showcase the best of the EP to a keen and loyal home town crowd. With the release of No One Left to Blame still fresh in the mind, and…

Someone really didn’t want Northeast Party House‘s (NEPH) Perth Factory Festival show to happen. The gig was rescheduled four times due to COVID-19 restrictions, eventually going ahead in the shadow of Perth going into lockdown at midnight that evening. But the party went ahead, with NEPH hitting the stage at 9:30pm, two-and-a-half hours before Perth’s…

An incredible return to the Forum Theatre played out on Wednesday night as The Teskey Brothers joined by Mia Wray played two shows across a packed sold-out venue. Mia Wray was a revelation to open both sets. Her powerful vocals set a wonderful tone for the set to come. Yet, Mia wasn’t to be outclassed…

Yours and Owls, the first major music festival held in NSW since the start of the global pandemic, went ahead in Dalton Park, Wollongong, this April 17 and 18, 2021. How was it? Well, let’s get into that. THE SETUP How do you run a festival when there’s a major pandemic going on? By developing…

Waywards in Sydney’s Newtown was treated to a night of the best up-and-coming bands, helmed by The Million for their single launch of “Last Call”. The crowd packed in for one of the first standing gigs back, with The Million frontman Jacob Thomas warning me that their crowd do mosh, despite their music being on the…

The Monday night concluding a four-day weekend is a ghastly time to play and Illy knew it at this week’s Factory Summer Festival show at Perth’s Metro City. The gig had been rescheduled numerous times due to the changing goalposts around COVID-19 restrictions meaning Illy and his faithful fans settled for what they could get….

Summer may be long gone but Perth’s Factory Summer Festival has been rolling the past few weeks, delayed due to the WA government’s restrictions, with The Presets the latest to grace the stage at Metro City. Factory has traditionally attracted a younger crowd with its inviting outdoor set-up and trendy image, so this year’s forced…

In “Magnetic”, Dan Sultan sang, “I’m trying to keep it simple/But I’m a complicated man.” Never were truer words uttered. Sultan’s one-off show at the Enmore Theatre certainly saw him keeping things modest. With his commanding voce and an acoustic guitar, he charmed the audience. The songs were wistful about the past and also had a…

Lime Cordiale are known to put on a raucous show, so sold-out seated nights at the Enmore Theatre were always dubious. But this weekend put the theory to the test as a sea of Cordiale quenchers flooded the Sydney venue to catch Oli and Louis Leimbach and their band do what they do best. The…

Day four of the WOMADelaide festival opened with Adelaide duo, Siberian Tiger. Their soulful and heartfelt tunes were a beautiful accompaniment to a sunny afternoon. The Teskey Brothers hit the stage next. The brothers have built quite a following from their festival appearances over the years and were a popular addition to the lineup. There…

Tash Sultana finished off day three of WOMADelaide in typical brash style. Sultana has a certain way of cajoling, enticing and threatening sounds from their plethora of instruments. They are surrounded by these instruments but is in no way confined by them. As they soar and float around the stage, they set each one off…

By the second day of Womadelaide, a certain peace and harmony had developed in the crowd. COVID precautions were understood and the mad rush to see everything had changed into a more relaxed atmosphere. Not that this stopped newcomer indigenous rappers MRLN x RKM whipping up some energy onstage. Marlon Motlop (AKA MRLN) was born…

The scaled-down COVID-safe Womadelaide still had plenty of the charm and community that we expect from this annual world music festival. Jamie Goldsmith presented a welcome to country and explained the meanings of the traditional greetings and names. King Rodney Park was named after a Kuarna elder. Womad opened with seasoned performer Archie Roach, who…

Sydney indie rockers Lime Cordiale have grown hugely in popularity over the past 12 months but it’s come during a period where live shows have been limited, so headlining the first SNACK Festival at Perth’s Metro City drew a sold-out crowd. Since last July’s release of their widely acclaimed sophomore LP 14 Steps To A…

9:30pm on a Thursday night and the Forum had a long line queuing around the side of Hozier Lane. Everyone was waiting to get in to see Holy Holy and their opening act, Queen P. There was extra tension in the queue: for many of us, it was the first time seeing an artist play…

“You’ve seen live streams before, but not like this,” The Hives lead singer Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist promised early as the Swedish garage rockers tried something a little different with a “Sydney show” last Thursday. The Swedish five-piece had launched a World Wide Web World Tour with six different dates across the globe including Berlin, London,…

WA alt-rockers Birds of Tokyo have done plenty in their 15-year existence, but a symphonic tour is something completely foreign and new, so frontman Ian Kenny admitted they were “shitting bricks” with their first few shows at the idyllic Perth Concert Hall over the weekend. Birds of Tokyo’s symphonic tour commenced on Thursday night with…

Mosh pits are officially burning up in Brisbane with Factory Summer Festival reviving the dance floor and reminding us how (un)pleasant it feels to be drenched in your neighbour’s sweat. One of the biggest nights of the festival saw a four act bill headlined by Vera Blue alongside Northeast Party House, GRAACE and Stace Cadet….

Fledging Perth producer Ukiyo, aka Timothy Arnott, may have garnered money-can’t-buy endorsements from Will Smith and Pharrell Williams but that wasn’t enough to genuinely draw a crowd for his maiden album launch at Jack Rabbit Slim’s in his hometown on Saturday night. It may have been a thin turn-out for the self-titled album launch, but…

Greatest Southern Nights returned for their second and final instalment at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena, rounding out what’s been a soul-reviving month of live music for the NSW scene. Following last week’s line-up of Jack Botts, Ruby Fields, Jack River and Ocean Alley; Saturday (December 5th) night drew a big ticket double-headline of Matt Corby and…

Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena saw the largest live music event in Australia since March on Saturday night (28th). As expected, this arena show looked very different to a pre-covid world with the crowd capped to 6,000 in the 21,000 person arena, but the quality of music and the eagerness in the crowd was not diminished….

As restrictions are slowly eased around Australia leading to the gradual return of live gigs, it feels like there’s pent-up energy ready to be released at every show but Perth indie-poppers Spacey Jane took the cake at a sold-out Bar 1 in Perth on Friday night. The local garage four-piece are quickly becoming renowned for…