The Living End ‘I Only Trust Rock ’N’ Roll Australian Tour’

@ Sydney Opera House Forecourt, Sydney 12/12/2025.

As the sun sets over the iconic picturesque setting of the Sydney Opera House, with clouds threatening the return of rain, the massive crowd filling the Opera House’ Forecourt and its steps leading to the Opera House, awaken the atmospheric charge as Aussie rock favourites of the past three decades, The Living End, claim the stage and the audience.

Tonight, the band will be performing two sets, one filled with fan favourites, including new tracks off the bands touring album ‘I Only Trust Rock ’n’ Roll’, and the second set, the bands’ debut self-titled album, featuring fan favourites signature rock/pub anthems ‘Prisoner Of Society’, ‘Second Solution’ and ‘West End Riot’, performed in its entirety.

Let’s start a West End Riot then shall we?…

The band open with the first powerhouse-single off the bands new album titled ‘Alfie’. So the band are starting with the set with hits from across all the other albums then. Like fans have come to know from a TLE gig, the band start off with a bang, not holding anything back. No fancy shit on stage, just three VB-drinking Aussie’s, with a couple of guitars, two different double bass’s, a drum kit and a microphone, belting out cutting-edge riffs, throbbing pulsing bass-lines, driving beats like thunder strikes and roaring, brutal, attention commanding hook-melody vocals! The energy in the audience around me is attentive and enthusiastic yes, but more held-back then what I’ve come to know and expect at a TLE gig, have the bulk of fans simply matured and settled down, not being as young and rowdy anymore?

No scratch that, here’s the good ol’ pub rowdiness! The bands’ second song of the evening is fan favourite ‘Roll On’. This song explodes the energy into a typical sweaty The Living End gig! The audience is now a sea of chanting “roll on, roll on!” with fists pumping along, before the crowd echo’s Chris’s anthem vocals surging forth into the song. Now the audience are lively rocking out, packing in the standing space more tightly and the first crowd surfer is brought forth.

With the crowds response to first ‘Alfie’ then ‘Roll On’, I really think ‘Roll On’ would’ve been a better set opener, despite it not being off the touring album which is typical and generally suitable as an opening song of an album tour, but the energy didn’t explode and blaze until the band whipped out ‘Roll On’. And it’s not simply fans not enjoying the new track, as previously mentioned, the enthusiasm was definitely there and we all enjoyed it thoroughly with the songs’ vibe and energy being very reminiscent of The Living End’s early releases with a new twist. No, it’s simply ‘Roll On’ is just one of those raucous anthemic rock bangers!

The energy in the crowd is sustained and at times during songs like ‘Wake Up’, ‘Who’s Gonna Save Us’ and new hits ‘Strange Place’ and ‘Misery’, is surged even higher, bringing forth more pushing, jumping and abundance of crowd surfers to my annoyance. As much as I really do fuckin’ hate crowd surfers being dragged over the top of me, kicking me on their way over the front barrier and copping knees and elbows in my head and shoulders, one of the guys crowd surfing is apparently on the downhill slope of life, with my friend estimating the crowd surfer being in his sixties, and honestly… respect to him for still living his best life!

Between songs which the sound has been mixed suitably, despite the acoustics being hard to count for being an open air setting, with all of the bands layers being nice and even, including Chris’s ripper vocals (which could be a tiny bit louder if I really wanted to pick at things with a fine tooth comb), the band casually chat to us like I’ve experienced them do at drastically smaller, pub venues rather than this large festival main stage sized outdoor setting. This gives an intimate feel to the vibe, very suitable of the cans of VB Chris downs, at one point via doing a shoey.

After a ten minute break for the band to catch their breath and restock their drinks, it’s time for the second set!

The Living End fans would likely know that the bands debut self-titled album opens with the iconic track ‘Prisoner Of Society’, which is normally saved for near the end of TLE sets. However, in keeping with playing the album from start to finish, we get slammed with its might up first, and it goes off! It becomes a little harder to hear Chris’s vocals with how loud the audience all sing every word from start to finish, with the crowds energy and its crowd surfers ramping up even more (I really fuckin’ hate crowd surfers!). If anyone thought that the band would be worn out and their on-stage energy faltering would be wrong. The constant flurry of movement on stage, with double-bassist Scott moving around even more than Chris apparently, which they dished out in the first set has NOT abated in the slightest, with sweat apparently pouring off each band member.

The band don’t keep to the typical rule of playing the album from start to finish like I thought, instead, they mix things up a little so fan favourite ‘All Torn Down’ is moved closer to the sets end to make sure the crowds energy is still at a fever pitch with everyone in the audience chanting along to “you got no rea-son, you got no rea-son!” and crowd surfers galore (I really fuckin’ hate crowd surfers!). Then capping off the riotous energy, finishing with the balls-out banger, ‘West End Riot’, with the classic signature performance stunt of Chris climbing up and standing atop Scott’s double-bass for a killer rock-out solo (yes, both Chris and Scott are still playing their instruments throughout the whole manoeuvre), then finally album closer, ‘Closing In’

Well considering the band haven’t played one of their biggest hits, ‘White Noise’ and crowd pleaser ‘Uncle Harry’ yet, I’m gonna guess there’s an encore with those two songs? Exactly that, a two song encore of ‘White Noise’ and ‘Uncle Harry’, with the band pausing at the songs finish, to rev us up in the crowd to give ‘em one more time or two of the party-anthemesque, sing it with a beer held high chorus with a raucous eruption of cheers when the band finish up with an all-out bang!

The Living End are one of those bands that I saw so many times in my early concert days, and they consistently put on an epic show that you can rely on, but I found myself needing a break from it as it started getting repetitive. However, the new album ‘I Only Trust Rock ’N’ Roll’ has reignited the spark in the bands musical fire I feel and even if I find myself in a hiatus from their shows for whatever reason, I’ll always be back eventually! Keen to see what comes next, maybe some guest appearances from other Aussie rock artists like Jimmy Barnes, Andrew from Wolfmother, or maybe Ray from Thirsty Merc in future recordings, to complement and give a fitting new layer to the bands music? Regardless… 

Did I mention that I really fuckin' hate crowd surfers!