23 November 2023 – Brisbane Showgrounds – words by Lucas Bell – pictures (supplied) by Bill Prendergast
After his massive support slot opening for Red Hot Chili Peppers back in January, Post Malone made his massively anticipated return to Australia, with his own headline tour. After catching him on the Chili Pepper tour, I was eager to see what he could do as a headliner. And in what was a cool announcement, Angus Stone was on the support slot for this tour.
Something I didn’t expect though, was Angus Stone playing a mix of his solo stuff, with song from Angus & Julia Stone, as well as dropping some Dope Lemon tunes as well. Angus played for about an hour, while doing an insane amount of hype for Post Malone, talking about how awesome he is, and how he expected Posts show to be incredible. Angus smashed through all the hits, with ‘Big Jet Plane’ getting the biggest reaction of the set, and the crowd loved every second of what Angus was giving us. I will say though, I felt that Angus was a bit of a tonal difference for what Post’s show provided, but in the best way possible. I feel though that Angus was the perfect pallette cleanser, for Post to come out to drop an incredly ecclectic show.
As the lights dimmed for the main event, the stage started to fill with Post Malone’s live band. Featuring a live drummer, guitarist, bass player, keyboardist, and even a freaking string section, the show started with an incredible introduction, as Posty walked onto stage to an absolutely insane ovation. As the introduction came to a close, the strings flowed over to an awesome rendition of the opening to ‘Better Now’. Post was pumped, as explosions came from both the pyro on stage, to everyone around me losing their minds. After flowing into wow., we were treated to massive chants for Post to do a Shoey. “We’re only two songs in, and you want me to do a Shoey? F**k it, why not?” was the rough quote. Afer pounding the first shoey of the night with a punter on the barrier (this was not the last shoey), Post basically ran through a best of, to set the tone for the night. He banged through ‘Zack and Codeine’, ‘Psycho’, and ‘Goodbyes’, before hitting a cover of ‘Dreams’ by Fleetwood Mac, which medlied into ‘Comedown’.
Post Malone – Brisbane Showgrounds
Watching Post live is truly an experience. He shot to megastardom off the back of White Iverson not even 10 years ago, and the man is packing out massive venues throughout Australia and New Zealand, and he still finds a way to make the shows feel intimate, and not like he’s playing to around 10k people. He also feels like just a guy. Some musicians feel godly in a way. Austin Post though feels like someone you could have beers with at the pub and have just a great time. And even with the shot into megastardom, he doesn’t feel like he takes any of this for granted. And you can tell just by the way he talks to the crowd. He loves every second of this journey he is on.
The hits continued, as we got our first new song of the night, ‘Mourning’, before belting back into the hits. ‘I Like You’ featured Doja Cat on a backing track, which was dope. My favourite song of the night though, was ‘Take What You Want’ – this song absolutely rips live. What was cool seeing it this time though, was that on the backing LED screen, was Ozzy Osbourne singing the hook, as his face appeared when singing. Post rapped over the top, and right before the solo, he ripped out some brutal gutterals for the chorus as pyro went off around him. The solo for this slays live too. Definitely the best part of the entire show.
We got some other hits, like ‘Over Now’, ‘rockstar’, and ‘Feeling Whitney’, before another cool moment happened, when Post pulled up a fan named Andrew to play ‘Stay’ on guitar for him. Andrew absolutely crushed it on guitar, with even Posty exclaiming how good he was on stage. I forgot to mention too, before this song, Post ripped his third Shoey of the night. This wasn’t the last. After Andrew returned to the crowd, the show kicked into overdrive, literally, as ‘Overdrive’ played, before getting into some absolutel classics like ‘I Fall Apart’, ‘Candy Paint’, ‘Circles’, ‘White Iverson’, and set closer, ‘Congratulations’.
Literal seconds had passed after Post left the stage, before encore chants rang out the Showgrounds. The live band and strings returned, and played another dope intro, before launching into ‘Sunflower’. The crowd went balistic for the song, as the show was closed out with ‘Chemical’. At first, I thought ‘Chemical’ was a weird song to close the show on, as I feel there are much better songs in the catalogue to send the fans home with. But after seeing it live, it was the perfect way to send the crowd off, as the song bops more live than I anticpated. Almost with a pop punk kind of vibe. Post closed the show off with his seventh Shoey of the night, with his assistant Dennis, as the rain kicked in almost like a sign to send everyone home, in what was an incredible night of live music.
