28 August 2026 – Crowbar, Brisbane – words and pictures by Bec Harbour
The Drones reuniting happens periodically, usually for a reason, but we have not had a national tour in some time. The Crowbar in Brisbane sold out for 3 nights straight in quick succession, showing how much people love The Drones, a band that certainly does not make music for the masses.
There was already a solid crowd at the Crowbar on Friday night when I arrived, likely on the strength of the support, another band we don’t see very often – The Mess Hall. Everyone that I spoke to was just as excited to see The Mess Hall as The Drones and people were locked onto that front of stage to get the best view.
Jed Kurzel and Cec Condon arrived on stage to a heartfelt greeting from the crowd and there were no airs and graces, The Mess Hall got right to work with the kick from the drumkit vibrating the venue floor. ‘Diddly’ and ‘Pills’ opened the 8 song set and people were moving forward to catch a better view.
The Mess Hall – Crowbar – photos by Bec Harbour
They whipped through ‘City of Roses’, ‘Disco 2’, ‘Pulse’ and ‘Bare’ with business like precision and someone beside me whispered that they thought that they sounded like the White Stripes. Not quite, same band composition and similar music roots, but The Mess Hall are much more urgent, gritty and complex (in several ways). The final songs for the set ‘Keep Walking’ and ‘Disco 1’ left us wanting more.
The Crowbar was filling up rapidly and it was getting difficult to navigate around the room. There were 2 distinct camps tonight, those who found The Drones early on and those who found them later, perhaps through Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin’s other creative vehicle, Tropical Fuck Storm. One punter who said he was too young to catch them last time they played in Brisbane, told me how stoked he was to actually get to see them live as he did not think he ever would.
I told him that I saw them in 2013 at the Tivoli and at a Big Day Out and another guy near us jumped in and said he saw that show at the Tivoli too. There was a sense of community tonight and these conversations were really nice to have – no judgement, we are all here for some really great music.
The Drones – Crowbar – photos by Bec Harbour
Kitschin, Liddiard and Dan Luscombe came out with their touring keys player and drummer to make sure everything was in working order, with Kitschin joking about her 2 ever present oscillating fans with some punters at the front “going for that rock star hair in the wind” look.
The Drones are also a band of little ceremony, they kicked off their set without much introduction with ‘Private Execution’ and ‘Taman Shud’ followed by ‘The Minotaur’ and ‘Luck in Odd Numbers’. Each song was greeted by cheers as the crowd recognised the songs and drifted into the moment with them.
The Drones – Crowbar – photos by Bec Harbour
The boundaries that other bands have on their sound are not present with The Drones as they move through more blues and even country based songs, to outright art-noise rock. What is present is the feeling that each song is a Drones song and instantly recognisable by their fans. We moved through ‘Sitting On The Edge Of The Bed Cryin’ and ‘Baby2’. The crowd swayed and moved to each song like they were getting buffeted by wind. The unmistakable opening notes of ‘I See Seaweed’ released a sound from the crowd that was half recognition, half gratitude and voices rose to meet Liddiard in the middle for those soaring choruses.
After ‘I See Seaweed’ there is an anecdote from Liddiard about Japan (it was hard to hear from up the back – for a venue that has some reasonably decent acoustics for music, spoken word can get very lost at the back) and he introduced the rest of the band before getting side tracked with the beer can size and another story about Los Angeles and Slash.
The Drones – Crowbar – photos by Bec Harbour
‘I’m Here Now’ flows into ‘Shark Fin Blues’ a crowd favourite and rounded off the set with ‘Jezebel’ and ‘I Don’t Want To Ever Change’. Once again without too much ceremony, they were back for an encore, ‘Locust’ and a cover of Kev Carmody’s ‘River Of Tears’.
The members of The Drones will all retire to their respective projects after this tour (Tropical Fuck Storm has a big end of year) and these shows will fade into gig-going lore until they decide to play another round. The Drones for this show demonstrated that they are musically connected and the performance came off as effortless.
