Ten years ago, Bad//Dreems released Dogs at Bay, a raw, defiant debut that cemented them as one of the most vital guitar bands in Australia. Now, the Adelaide band are hitting the road to celebrate the album’s legacy with an intimate run of shows across the country.
The ‘Dogs at Bay 10th Anniversary Tour’ will see the band perform their landmark 2015 record in full, alongside a setlist of fan favourites, in a handful of handpicked venues. Tickets go on sale Friday, July 4th at 10am local time, with a pre-sale available from Thursday, July 3rd.
The band teased the announcement with a thinly-veiled post on Instagram yesterday, writing, “BIIIIIIG Baddies announcement coming at 10am AEST TOMORROW! We’re looking forward to looking back and getting up close ‘n’ personal with our DAY ONE RIDE OR DIES. YOU best pop your details down on our mailing list at BADDREEMS.COM for first dibbs at whatever this mysterious, amazingly randy thing is.”
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More than just a debut, Dogs at Bay was a lightning bolt moment for Australian rock: loud, literate, and emotionally unflinching. With songs like “Cuffed & Collared”, “Hiding to Nothing”, and “My Only Friend”, the record gave voice to suburban confusion and masculine vulnerability at a time when few bands dared to. It stripped the gloss from modern Aussie life and held up a mirror to its contradictions — gruff guitars, swaggering vocals and all.
“I was never convinced that people really understood the band or our songs at the time,” reflects guitarist and songwriter Alex Cameron. “Then again, I don’t know if we really did either. After our early releases, some pseudo-cultural elites wrote us off as ‘pub rock’. So, this was a moniker we embraced, unfashionable though it was at the time.”
“It proved an interesting vehicle to explore many of the themes that underpin the Australian identity, which is something we have always been drawn to,” he continues. “Dogs at Bay was the beginning of an exciting and often peculiar road, replete with a few potholes and wrong turns. The songs seem to have stood the test of time; many are still mainstays of our set. We feel lucky that there is interest enough from people for us to revisit it.”
Produced by Australian rock legend Mark Opitz (AC/DC, Cold Chisel, The Angels), Dogs at Bay earned nods from the AIR Awards, National Live Music Awards, and SA Music Awards, and even scored an honourable mention in Rolling Stone AU/NZ’s Greatest Australian Albums of All Time. Its ripple effect helped usher in a new generation of gritty, no-bullshit rock storytellers — Amyl and the Sniffers, The Chats, Pist Idiots — bands unafraid to be both brutal and vulnerable.
“We wanted to show that it was ok to like football and poetry,” Cameron once said of the band’s ethos; a statement that still sums up the unique contradiction at the heart of Bad//Dreems.
Since forming in an Adelaide whitegoods warehouse in 2012, the band have released three more acclaimed albums: Gutful, Doomsday Ballet, and 2023’s Hoo Ha!, which was nominated for ARIA’s Best Rock Album and earned them Double J Artist of the Year recognition. But it’s Dogs at Bay that remains a cornerstone of their catalogue and a turning point for contemporary Aussie rock.
To mark the tour, the band has also dropped a limited edition Dogs at Bay 10th Anniversary vinyl, available in two striking colourways, ‘Bogan Brick’ and ‘Hume Blue’, featuring all the songs that helped shape a movement.
Bad//Dreems 2025 Australian Tour
Presale: Thursday, July 3rd, 10am AEST – via mailing list
General On Sale: Friday, July 4th, 10am local time via baddreems.com
Friday, September 5th
Mary’s Underground, Sydney NSW
Thursday, September 11th
Lefty’s Music Hall, Brisbane QLD
Friday, September 19th
The Evelyn, Melbourne VIC
Saturday, September 20th
Port Noarlunga Arts Centre, Port Noarlunga SA
Friday, October 7th
Indian Ocean Hotel, Scarborough WA
