The Sydney Opera House is welcoming some big names to its Forecourt this coming March.
PJ Harvey
With special guest Mick Turner
March 13th, 2025
Sydney Opera House Forecourt
In her first Australian visit since 2017, PJ Harvey will bring her acclaimed new show celebrating her Grammy-nominated 2023 album, I Inside the Old Year Dying, as well as offering a deep dive into her masterful back catalogue.
A musician and poet, Polly Jean Harvey is a UK cultural icon, receiving an MBE for Services to Music in 2013. She’s also the only artist to have been awarded the prestigious Mercury Music Prize twice, in 2001 for Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, and 2011 for Let England Shake. Her collaborations include works with Parish, Thom Yorke, Nick Cave, Tricky, and Sparklehorse.
A PJ Harvey show is not merely a concert, but a theatrical presentation that echoes her dramatic evolution as an artist. Her recent tour has been met with a rapturous reception, including her performance at Glastonbury in June.
“Harvey moves slowly, balletically,” MOJO stated in its review at the time. “Her eyes gleam with an otherworldliness – like the doomed heroine in a folk ballad. Over the dubby undertow of The Nether-Edge she stalks bendily around her band, keening.
“And just when you’ve come to accept and embrace that maybe this will, daringly, be a pure showcase of Recent Peej, there’s a change of pace. Harvey applies lip-balm and rips into Rid of Me’s ’50ft Queenie’… as if it’s 1993 again. Suddenly the Polly Harvey of 1995’s Glastonbury performance – in the pink catsuit and foot-long false eyelashes, with a band steeped in Beefheart blues-gnarl – is not a million miles away. It’s spine-tingling.”
New Order
March 14th-15th, 2025
Sydney Opera House Forecourt
New Order‘s last Australian visit in 2020 was interrupted by COVID-19 and while it’ll have taken five years to make it back by the time they’re here in March, it will be more than worth the wait.
Formed from the ashes of Joy Division following the passing of Ian Curtis, New Order have been celebrated since their inception for their synth-pop gems, from the timeless “Blue Monday” to the eternal floor-fillers “Temptation” and “Bizarre Love Triangle”.
The heady days of the band’s mid-’80s existence is examined on the just-released second series of the New Order Transmission podcast. From the excesses of Ibiza and the Hacienda Nightclub, to Factory Records and signing to Quincy Jones’ Qwest label in the US, and ending up as New Order enter the studio to record “World in Motion” for the 1990 World Cup, it’s a fascinating ride with stories from the likes of band members Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, Gillian Gilbert and Peter Hook (formerly), with other contributions from the likes of Johnny Marr, Billy Corgan, Christine and the Queens, The Chemical Brothers’ Tom Rowlands, Neil Tennant, Bez, and more.
Onstage, New Order still bring the business. “From ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’s crowd-rousing howls of ‘I get down on my knees and pray’ to the era-defining kickdrum thump of ‘Blue Monday’, the evening is one of celebration,” noted WhyNow.co.uk of the band’s August show at Wythenshawe Park in Manchester. “[…] there’s been dancing, there’s been tears, but it’s been a fine time indeed.”
Fontaines D.C.
With special guests Wunderhorse
March 6th, 2025
Sydney Opera House Forecourt
Much has been made of the aesthetic and stylistic shifts that Fontaines D.C. have showcased upon the release of their fourth album, Romance, but the truth is that they’ve always hinted at what was ahead, their poetic post-punk (though they hate that term) allowing them to control the machine at every turn.
“You can’t arrest our development for the sake of people who get misty-eyed when they hear our first record,” vocalist Grian Chatten told GQ recently. Conor ‘Deego’ Deegan echoed his sentiment, “Do we go this conventional, safe route to keep plugging away, or do we actually just go for the bold thing and be brave?”
Teaming with producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Blur) has perhaps resulted in a more approachable Fontaines D.C., but Romance finds them as enticing as ever. “Each song on Romance acts as its own fantastical cinematic universe, fleshed out with fictional characters, in-depth monologues, and pristinely-curated sonic elements to match,” stated Rolling Stone in a four-star review.
The Dublin rockers appear to be heading towards a stadium-sized trajectory, so their Sydney Opera House appearance may be the last time Australian fans will see them in closer surrounds. As for their live show, a recent review from The Guardian attests to their excellence:
“On Romance, (Chatten) may be trying to evolve away from the ranting delivery so associated with Fontaines D.C., but he is an undisputed master of it. The out-and-out banger Starburster closes the set with a stream-of-consciousness tour of a Chatten panic attack, in which religion, JD Salinger and Chinese astrology are just three points of reference. The entire venue inhales as one on the song’s deep, gasping refrains.”
For tickets to Fontaines D.C., PJ Harvey, and New Order head to sydneyoperahouse.com
