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Australian audiences are in for a monster 2025 with Metallica, Oasis, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and other big names confirming they’re heading Down Under. IA’s music man David Kowalski has the goods on that and more.
Aussie stadiums, 2025 — Enter Metallica
Next year is shaping up to be huge for international touring acts landing on our shores. Oasis has announced shows in October and November, and it’s likely the band will be swapping stadiums with Metallica.
The U.S. metalheads will unleash their record-breaking M72 World Tour at the same venues within days of the Gallagher brothers heading interstate. Couple that with Nashville Country superstars Luke Combs and Chris Stapleton coming earlier in the year, as well as big tours by Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa… huge.
Major acts like Taylor Swift and Coldplay toured in 2024 and, especially in Swift’s case, seemed to absorb all the oxygen (read: airtime, column inches in the press), for taking money out of the Australian touring music scene.
Swift’s tour was blamed for low ticket sales at other gigs and festivals around the country, presumably because everyone had sunk what little hard-earned cash they had spare into tickets to her gigs.
Of course, there were other economic pressures that caused some of our major festivals to shut their doors this year. It seems a bit unfair to blame Swift for that. Personally, I believe it’s Metallica and Oasis who will be in the same position (pulling a Swiftie, geddit? I’ll show myself out…) this time around. Will they get blamed for the same thing?
That said, Swift seems to have started a trend, bringing her own international support act – thus ignoring local talent –as pre-show entertainment. Metallica is bringing U.S. acts Evanescence and Suicidal Tendencies. Luke Combs is bringing two of his Nashville mates Mitchell Tenpenny and Jordan Davis.
What about giving local bands a chance to warm up the crowds so audiences get to experience local artists, too? It used to be almost mandated that a local act would be on the bill with a major international touring artist.
Why is this not a priority anymore? Surely, some of that ticket money could go into the pockets of a young artist who could really use that cash? It’s always worth turning up early to see the opening act at a gig — but equally important to highlight the Australian music scene by allowing an audience to experience the great talent in our backyard.
Shihad calls time
In the news this week comes the announcement that one of my favourite acts to emerge from Aotearoa/New Zealand, Shihad, is calling it a day in 2025 after over 35 years together as a band. The band announced a farewell concert tour will take place next year.
Forming in 1988, Shihad was a big concert draw in Australia with ferocious live shows. Albums sold in healthy quantities over the years, but then it seemed bad luck followed the band for years. Just as Shihad’s star was on the rise, the USA beckoned. As the band made its first tentative steps into the biggest music market in the world, a couple of hijacked planes felled a couple of skyscrapers in New York City in 2001 — which meant Shihad’s name was instantly taboo because it sounded too much like “jihad”.
So, a new name was needed. The replacement didn’t seem to help much, though — Pacifier. Fair enough, I guess – it was taken from the name of one of their earlier songs – but it doesn’t exactly scream “trendy and heavy alt-rock band from the Antipodes”, now, does it?
The band has been more preoccupied with life and other side projects of late and found it harder and harder to come together to make albums (only maing two in the last ten years).
Shihad announced this will definitely be the band’s final tour. It marks the end of one of the premier live acts this region has ever seen. Thank you for the music, lads.
Cheap tickets but Betty Taylor worth twice the price
Brisbane-based indie upstart Betty Taylor is gearing up for its first EP release in 2025, a release ironically titled ‘Young Dumb Immature‘.
The band has a richly layered sound with loads of fuzzed-out guitars and with vocalist Sophie Patrick’s dreamy vocals, it has carved out an atmospheric sound that is shrouded in mystery and the pull of the unknown.
Betty Taylor is doing an east coast tour shortly and in response to the dynamic ticketing debacle of late, is keeping their ticket prices down as low as possible — capping every entry fee at $20. A bargain at twice the price. Go and check them out.
‘Chiming’ in with raw talent
Wollongong band Chimers has flown beneath my radar until now. But these talented musicians have poked their collective heads above the fray with a second album: Through Today.
It is a collection of songs filled with ‘raw, honest aggression’ (per press release) that creates a sound all their own.
Chimers’ approach to making music is direct and unfussy, ensuring all ten tracks buzz past in just over half an hour, but not before they have rewired your synapses with glorious noise. The opening track, ‘3AM,’ is a thumping burst of energy that will do nothing to cure insomnia but will keep your household awake at all hours of the night. Recommended.
Quincy Jones in memoriam
Just a bit too late for our last print deadline came the announcement that we had lost one of the titans of the global music industry, Quincy Jones, at the age of 91. It has been reported that he lost his battle with pancreatic cancer — a battle few people knew he was fighting.
Jones was an amazing musician who famously had one of the largest Rolodexes of anyone in the music business — he seemingly not only knew everybody, but he has just about worked with everybody one could think of, in one form or another.
At the age of 14, Jones met then-unknown Ray Charles and formed a lifelong friendship. He was poached from the Count Basie orchestra to be band leader and arranger for Frank Sinatra and started a jazz label called EmArcy that made records for greats Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan among others, as well as his own jazz orchestra music.
One such piece of orchestral work, ‘Soul Bossa Nova’, was plucked from obscurity to become the theme music of the Mike Myers spy-film spoof named Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.
Jones produced records for the likes of Lesley Gore, George Benson, Chaka Khan and the Brothers Johnson… oh, and also a little album by a guy named Michael Jackson. Thriller has, to date, sold over 70 million copies globally (1.19 million in Australia as of 2023).
It was Jones that produced USA for Africa’s ‘We Are The World‘ in 1985. His television production company also bankrolled a sitcom for rapper and actor Will Smith, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
He was a truly remarkable creative spirit. Thank you for all your music, Quincy Jones.
Until next time…
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David Kowalski is a writer, musician, educator, sound engineer and podcaster. His podcasts ‘The Sound and the Fury Podcast’ and ‘Audio Cumulus’ can be heard exclusively HERE. You can follow David on Twitter @sound_fury_pod.
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