Great Australian tours

As a country, isolation is a great thing, especially when you produce as many kick-ass bands that we do, that also like to tour. A lot. So you should go to these shows with me.

DZ Deathrays

This two piece from Brisbane channel DFA 1979. No doubts about it. Just two guys making some noisy-ass garage rock with excellent hooks that get your toes tapping. I was lucky enough to see them on their first Australian show in over a year at Fucked Up last year. These guys have blown up incredibly in the few years since I first saw them (as the DZ). They're touring for the new album, which you can get with your concert ticket in a cheap package that includes a t-shirt.

Touring with them are another Brisbane garage rock band, but on the other end of the stage-size spectrum. Velociraptor are a 12 piece (on a good day when everyone turns up) garage rock noise juggernaut.

April 12 - Elsewhere, Gold Coast

April 13 - The Zoo

April 14 - Great Northern Hotel, Byron Bay

As far as I can tell, all shows are 18+. And loud.

The Go Set

The Go Set are a celtic punk band from down south, who I saw play a punkfest a few years ago. Featuring all of the essentials of the genre: tin whistle, bagpipes, tartan. They also make some very good punk music to go along with it.

April 12 - Surfers Beer Garden, Gold Coast

April 13 - Kings Beach Tavern, Caloundra

April 14 - Prince of Wales Hotel

Given the type of venue, they are probably all 18+.

Jamie Hay/Jen Buxton

Do you like your punk to be acoustic with excellent sing alongs you can do with one arm around a friend and one holding your beer in the sky? Then get along to this song. It's so folk-punk acoustic that Frank Turner wrote a song about Jen.

March 22 - Snitch (X and Y), 18+

March 23 - Between the Walls, all-ages (BYO)

Arrows

So many of my friends are obsessed with Arrows.

I can understand why. If you're into that noodly style 90's emo stuff that is having a popularity resurgence right now you would dig Arrows too. What makes it better is they are a band (mainly) from Brisbane. My roomate even works with one of the dudes. I keep saying it, but we do have some of the best music in the country right in our city.

I saw them once, in Melbourne of all places, opening for This Town Needs Guns. A perfect combination for a perfect noodly concert. They are a very hard bunch to catch live, as they don't play a lot of shows. However, we're going to get our second Arrows show in the last few months very soon.

October 1st, at Thriller. This will be my first time heading to Thriller since they moved from Rosies. It's now halfway between the Valley and the city at Hotel Orient. I'm hoping this venue is better than Rosies was for quieter bands. During Frank Turner all I could really hear was the music from the dance floor one room over.

Opening for Arrows is the always wonderful Jamie Hay. A former hardcore singer, he now does his own style of acoustic folk rock. But which former hardcore singer doesn't do that these days?

Arrows (with free MP3s)
Jamie Hay