Yungblud
Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney
Saturday, January 11th
Growth becomes most visible at the moment when intimacy is supposed to disappear.
A venue upgrade reflects not just demand, but development. Bigger rooms ask harder questions of an artist. They stretch intimacy thin, often shifting the balance between spectacle and presence. When Yungblud took the stage at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena on Saturday night, moving from his original show location at the Hordern Pavilion, compromise was out of the question. On the first night of his IDOLS world tour in Australia, the arrival of Dominic Harrison felt less like a routine return and more like a marker of growth, shared between the artist and audience alike.
Yungblud’s shared history with Australia was established before he arrived on stage. Opening duties were handed to Brisbane punks Dune Rats, whose presence immediately grounded the night in something distinctly Aussie. Their set unfolded like a greatest-hits victory lap, with classic Dunies tracks like “Scott Green,” “Bullshit,” and “Red Light Green Light” played out with sunburnt irreverence intact, tickling the part of the brain that gets nostalgic for backyard tinnies on a warm summer’s day. Peak chaos ensued when special guests Shane Parsons of DZ Deathrays and the original Red Wiggle, Murray Cook, joined the band onstage for their Angels cover of “Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again.” Thousands of voices roared back the infamous refrain “no way; get fucked; fuck off!”, transforming the arena into a collective release valve.
What initially read as an unconventional support choice soon revealed itself as intentional. Yungblud has known Dune Rats for years, inviting them on this tour not just as a strategic pairing, but as old friends. That context framed the night as something lived-in, with lasting relationships carried forward as the rooms got bigger.
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After a deliberate pause to reset the space, roll instruments into place, thicken the air with billowing smoke machines and give everyone space for a breather, the arena speakers erupted with Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” to indicate that the main event was about to commence. The choice of song was part introduction, part provocation, functioning as both audience ignition and backstage amp-up; a nod to rock lineage and theatrical menace that sharpened anticipation to a single point.
Yungblud’s stage left entry was immediate and uncompromising. Opening with the first track of “IDOLS”, the eight-minute, multi-act saga built around repetition and release “Hello Heaven, Hello,” he greeted the room with a chant rather than a statement. At the song’s first drop, white confetti cannons detonated across the arena, flooding the crowd with a moment of controlled excess. It was a spectacle deployed with intent to unify the energy between artist and crowd.
From there, the night unfolded as a lesson in audience stewardship. Yungblud moved fluidly between scale and closeness, repeatedly entering the crowd, locking eyes and urging fans to take care of one another (not to mention letting one Wollongong fan play guitar left-handed on stage!). His affection for Australia was expressed not through generic tour platitudes, but through oddly specific touchstones: making references to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, schooners, a professed devotion to Vegemite (“I had it on my fucking toast this morning!”), all memories that suggested familiarity rather than performance. Clearly a fan of local customs, Yungblud took part in the ultimate Aussie on-stage antic of a shoey, gulping down his drink from a Converse high top.
Production-wise, the show was relentless. Flamethrowers lined the stage throughout the entire show, pumping heat in rhythmic bursts as the set moved between material from IDOLS and earlier fan favourites like “fleabag” and “Loner”. The older tracks landed with the full weight of shared memory whilst the newer material held its own, received by the crowd in a way that only comes with shared trust and love.
“Rock and roll is love,” Yungblud told the crowd as he spoke about what rock and roll had given him (and what it could still offer), cementing the theme of the show. Everyone here tonight, he said, was here because of love. The night’s emotional centre of gravity shifted when the artist dedicated his next song to “my friend up in the sky,” the late Ozzy Osbourne. What followed was a deeply felt rendition of “Changes,” a song that Yungblud notably performed at Black Sabbath’s final ever show last year. The song’s refrain, “I’m going through changes”, landed with particular resonance in a room that was already primed to reflect the artist’s growth. Yungblud’s newfound level of artistic maturity crystallised on stage as he embodied a rockstar conscious of the space he occupies, aware that leadership, vulnerability and playfulness can coexist without cancelling each other out.
Australian fans have long embraced Yungblud as one of their own. On the opening night of IDOLS, he stepped into the arena without losing sight of what brought him there, threading gratitude through his performance at every turn.
Closing the night with “Zombie,” and a second shower of confetti (this time in crimson), Yungblud distilled the evening’s emotional highs and lows into a single, communal release. It’s a song already deeply loved, yet still restless, aching with the yearning that continues to propel him forward. With tears streaming down the faces of artist and audience alike, it became clear this return wasn’t about being bigger for the sake of it.
The space has expanded. The heart didn’t have to.
