18 April 2026 – The Princess Theatre, Brisbane – words by Lucas Bell – pictures by Maxine Thomas
It’s pretty wild to think that it’s been nearly two whole years since the last Hands Like Houses headline tour. Since then, the band has done so much. They hit the road on a massive regional tour opening for The Butterfly Effect, they were on the east coast dates on The Used’s anniversary tour, plus did the Big Pineapple Music Festival and a run of shows through Europe, while pumping out tune after tune. Now they’re back, this time with Melbourne metalcore legends, Dream On Dreamer.
This tour is a bit different though compared to previous ones. In February, Hands Like Houses sent out a call to the fans. “Who do you want to see open these shows up”, and in a matter of days, over 300 bands had been tagged to the Hands Like Houses social media, with fans desperate to see their local favourites make the cut. And while bands like Patient Sixty Seven, Blinder, Arkangel, Nth Road, Happy Valley, St. Sinner, and Aurateque made up the other parts of the country; only two bands could be hand picked from the Brisbane line up. Beating out over 90 bands.was The Local Romance, and Nervous Light.
Nervous Light were the first band out for the night, and boy howdy did they fucking rule. Nervous Light are a band I discovered last year opening for Behind Crimson Eyes on their farewell tour. So to see them getting a bigger stage and more recognition from the Brisbane scene fills my heart with so much joy. Opening on my favorite track, ‘A Lotus in the Mud’, the lads cracked through a strong six song set including the title track to their debut EP, ‘Bury What’s Left Of My Heart In Your Backyard’, their breakout hit ‘Coffee Stains and Picture Frames’, and ‘bitemytongue’. Bassist Antony called for a mosh pit for their new song, which seeing for him was something to tick off the bucket list. The new track, ‘Mistaking the Collapse for a Quiet Ending’, drops next week, as will our interview with them before the show, where we talk about the new song. The band’s final song of the night was the first song they ever wrote, Haunt, which at its end drew a crazy ovation from the Brissy crowd. Hoping the lads make 2026 their biggest year on record.
Nervous Light – The Princess – photos by Maxine Thomas
Up next was the second of the local hand picked bands, in The Local Romance. Whereas I have a lot of familiarity with Nervous Light, The Local Romance are a band I only really know by name, and not by sound. But from the immediate opening, you can see why like Nervous Light, they were picked by Hands Like Houses to open this show. While I wasn’t familiar with their catalogue of tunes, there were a couple of songs I did manage to pick up, like ‘Valentine’, and the song ‘Rescue Me’, which is off their brand new EP, The Darkest Parts of Me, which dropped in January. The performance was anchored by the vocals of Zeph Chambers, who has such an impressive range of vocals live that at times I didn’t actually think he was singing without some kind of backing track or filter on the mic. But he was, and it was insanely impressive.
Local Romance – The Princess – photos by Maxine Thomas
It’s been a long time between sets for me and the next band, Dream On Dreamer. I’ve been a fan since the band’s first album Heartbound, which dropped 15 years ago, with memories of tracks like ‘Downfall’ and ‘Lifestream’ doing one repeats on my old mp3 player. So it’s good to be able to get another chance to see the lads again in 2026. And holy shit, do they sound as good as they have ever sounded. Despite the set only being nine songs long, it felt like they were on stage for over an hour, as I soaked in every moment of the set.
The majority of the set comprised of tracks from 2018’s It comes and Goes, with odd songs scattered throughout the bands fifteen year discography, they delivered a high energy, super fun set of tracks like ‘Let It In’ ‘Surrender’, and ‘Stay’, which was dedicated to tourmates and best friends, Hands Like Houses. We got a taste of the older stuff too with ‘Hear Me Out’ from 2015’s Loveless getting a massive singalong, and ‘All My Life’ from their new record, Heavens, which drops on May 1st. They closed on the standard outro that is ‘Runaway’, with a lot of the people in the building hoping for a headline tour next year.
Dream On Dreamer – The Princess – photos by Maxine Thomas
While every band tonight has been at the top of their game, I don’t think anything yet could have prepared us for the next 80 minutes of live music, as Canberra rock icons Hands Like Houses made their way out to a rapturous ovation. Opening with ‘Lótus’, they lads pumped through an insane 18 song setlist, which did an incredible job of balancing the old era of Hands Like Houses, with the new one, and giving vocalist Josh Raven one of the best performances I’ve seen of him with the band yet.
‘Love & Affection’ was up second, before we got ‘Perspectives’, which was nice to hear early. Raven then jumped down into the pit to do the monster tune ‘ICU’ surrounded by Brisbane as he delivered the best moment of the night on the floor with the audience. Drummer Matt Parkitny then had a spotlight dropped on him, as he ripped out an awesome drum solo that bled perfectly into the intro to ‘Flowers’. Raven shouted out the next one was an old one, as we got ‘No Parallels’, with some of the biggest crowd participation of the night. A part I haven’t mentioned about the night so far, was that throughout the night, someone kept holding shoes up through the different bands. What I didn’t realise, was that the shoes were Josh’s shoes that he had given to someone earlier in the night, because they were denied entry into the venue. Josh had a good chuckle about seeing his shoes above the crowd, before they played ‘Overthinking’.
Hands Like Houses – The Princess – photos by Maxine Thomas
The next song was the band’s cover of ‘Wicked Game’ by Chris Isaak, as a circle pit started for the song. But not people doing what a traditional circle pit is. The circle were locked arm in arm, as they rotated around in a circle to the song, as Raven belted the tune out with incredible discipline. They ripped through some more songs, like ‘Through Glass’ and ‘Space’, before Zach from Dream On Dreamer came out for ‘Warning Signs’, which is the song he features on with Hands Like Houses. Once we got through ‘DEAD’, Raven led the crowd to sing along to ‘Paradise’, prompting the crowd with the ‘I’m Doing Just Fine’ lyric every time he pointed the mic to the crowd.
Hands Like Houses – The Princess – photos by Maxine Thomas
The next song needed no introduction, Raven said, as ‘Colourblind’ played to the biggest reaction to a song of the night. Raven gave a cheers to the crowd, as the final song of the main set concluded with ‘The Water’. As the lights dimmed after the walk off, the lights switched back on for the final two songs, which despite having been in the building nearly five hours, Brisbane was as red hot as the start of the night. ‘I Am’ kicked off the encore, as show closer ‘Heaven’ played Brisbane out to an incredible Saturday night of live music.
Hands Like Houses – The Princess – photos by Maxine Thomas
