14 May 2025 – Brisbane Entertainment Centre – words by Lucas Bell – pictures by Bec Harbour
Off the back of the bands long and storied career, and their incredible eleventh record Supercharged, LA punk royalty The Offspring are back in Australia to promote the new record. Following on from their Japanese leg of the tour, Canadian pop punkers Simple Plan joined The Offspring again for these runs of shows, ensuring these shows to be must see events.
As 7:50pm hit the clock, the ‘Imperial March’ from Star Wars played over the speakers, as the boys in Simple Plan walked out and opened their set with ‘I’d Do Anything’. Smoke cannons went crazy all night for the openers, as more smoke and streamers popped off for ‘Shut Up’, and the pit moved for ‘Jump’. Erin Reus, formerly of Brissy pop punk legends Stateside joined the band on stage for ‘Jet Lag’, which drew a massive round of applause from her hometown. Simple Plan ripped into ‘Addicted’ next, which drew another massive reception.
Simple Plan – BEC – photos by Bec Harbour
Pierre did his best/worst Aussie accent, asking if we were “exscoited” to see The Offspring. A fast song was promised, and we got on with ‘Thank You’. Pierre spoke about having been back to Australia a few times the last few years, and asked if it was okay if they came back every year, which overwhelmingly Brisbane said yes to. The accent came back out as Pierre introduced ‘Welcome to My Loife’. ‘Boom!’ provided a bit of heaviness in the set, which I didn’t know these boys were even capable of. Beach balls then went flying for ‘Summer Paradise’, and ‘Take My Hand’ also got some love.
Brisbane was then given a special announcement, as they brought out multiple Scooby Doo’s for ‘What’s New Scooby Doo’. There was talk about how the band are Canadian, and every time they come back to Australia it feels like home, as ‘Where I Belong’ played. Two songs left in the set, the band did a photo with the crowd during ‘I’m Just A Kid’, and Pierre and drummer Chuck switched roles, as Chuck jumped into the crowd and crowd surfed the last part of the song. Pierre returned to the stage and sang the set closer, ‘Perfect’, solo, before the band kicked in the final part to an absolutely ravenous Brisbane crowd. I’ve never been a diehard Simple Plan fan, but after this performance, consider me a fan for life.
Simple Plan – BEC – photos by Bec Harbour
Immediately after Simple Plan left the stage, The Offspring’s Supercharged Skeleton logo popped on the screens with a 30 minute countdown timer, and included fan interaction stuff like the booty dance cam, a head bang cam encouraging people to head bang to Motley Crue, prompts for a wave, and a final five minute count as Thunderstruck by AC/DC played, which really hyped the crowd up. This bled seamlessly into the opening number, ‘Come Out and Play’, which featured a massive back board of arcade games playing in the background. Dexter asked Brisbane “What’s going on”, as they led into ‘Original Prankster’, which two songs in, felt like the building was shaking. My favourite song was next, as Dexter riffed the chorus to ‘Want You Bad’, before the full band kicked in and played the song through. Another “how are you doing” came from Dexter, and Noodles screamed a big “FUCK YEAH”, as they blitzed through a string of classics like ‘Staring at the Sun’, newer tracks like ‘Looking Out for #1’, and bangers like ‘Hammerhead’, ‘Hit That’, ‘Make It All Right’, and ‘Bad Habit’.
The Offspring – BEC – photos by Bec Harbour
At this point, we got an extended comedy routine from Dexter and Noodles, with promises the show only gets crazier from here. Noodles taught me a lot about Brisbane tonight I didn’t know, like how if you look up Queensland on Wikipedia, it’s listed as the craziest place in the world, and that the Brisbane Entertainment Centre broke a venue capacity record with tonight’s show of 1,319,604 people in the building! Which is wild because the capacity is only about 12k. Props to Brisbane for showing out haha! They continued to shit talk for another 5 or so minutes, before Dexter left the stage so Noodles could lead the rest of the band in playing riffs like ‘Smoke On the Water’, ‘Iron Man’, and ‘Detroit Rock City’. We got an extended playthrough of ‘Hall of the Mountain King’, before Dexter returned on stage to play a cover of ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ by The Ramones, which was sick.
The back third of the set included ‘Gotta Get Away’, which had a gnarly drum solo at the end, and a piano being rolled out for ‘Gone Away’. Dexter sat solo on stage as he spoke about writing the song for a friend who passed away too soon, and encouraged everyone pulling out their phone lights to represent someone that person loved that was also taken from them before their time. There was crying in the club because this is another one of my favourite songs, and to see it performed in such a raw way was beautiful. Pierre from Simple Plan came out and helped out on ‘Why Don’t You Get a Job’, as the final songs of the main set played with ‘Spare Me the Details’, ‘Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)’, and ‘The Kids Aren’t Alright’. All three songs getting incredible sing-alongs from the crowd, especially ‘Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)’.
The Offspring – BEC – photos by Bec Harbour
As the main set concluded, the blimp returned glowing in the dark, as pyro went off for the encore, which kicked off with ‘You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid’, and the show closed on the band’s most popular hit song, ‘Self Esteem’.
Tonight’s show was nothing short of incredible. And being able to hear a set of Offspring hits was awesome. But I wish we had more songs from Supercharger, as this was billed as the Supercharger World Tour. Other than that, zero complaints. I laughed, cried, sung my heart out, and had an amazing night with two bands considered the best in their generation.
