I might have mentioned I’m a bit of fan of The Buoys, and there was no better way to round out 2025’s gig season than with a Buoy’s show.
On a day when Melbourne finally worked out summer was here, I was a little apprehensive about heading to a small gig venue to slowly melt (or freeze, depending on the vibe tbh) but props to 170 Russell for actually having excellent, suitably temperature-controlled air conditioning.
Sadly we didn’t make it in time to see the first support act, Jess Locke (Jess is great, you should check her out here).
However, we do need to take a little bit of time to talk about second support, Chloe Dadd. Wow! I have not seen a support act smash it like that in a long time. It was my first time seeing Chloe live and I was absolutely blown away by her voice, her stage presence and her energy. Chloe and her band showed up!
From her outfit to the screens at the back of the stage, this felt like a curated show. They absolutely could have got away with calling this a double headliner (and this is no disrespect to The Buoys who I adore). Chloe made sure that everyone knew who she was, introduced her band and genuinely connected with her audience. Basically ticking off all of the points on my lil list.
Now on to The Buoys. It’s always a joy seeing them live. They consistently look like they’re having so much fun and their palpable vivacity on stage draws people in. Then before you know it the whole crowd is bopping and dancing along. It’s actually easy to overlook how technically good they are as band too, because they make it look so easy! There was this one moment where Tess just casually, without even a glance, hits her cymbal mid song with just a backhanded flick of her stick making it look completely effortless. And don’t even get me started on Hilary’s guitar playing!
It was great to see some old tracks, like Inside Out, on the set list. Hearing title track of the tour, Bitch, live was an eagerly anticipated moment of the night and getting to hear an unreleased track, Take It Over, was a nice surprise. It’s a catchy, quite rocky tune – I’m wondering if this and Bitch are setting a tone for the sonic direction of The Buoys next release.
One major highlight of the night was Zoe heading into the crowd to perform a more stripped back version of Arm Wrestle. I love how this allowed the lyrics of this one to hit just that bit harder and it perfectly suited this sombre song filled with self-doubt. Also, massive props to the crowd because I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen an artist do this without someone in the crowd trying to overly interact with them in some borderline inappropriate way.
The second highlight for me was watching the sheer joy in the bands faces as the crowd sang their hit Lie to Me Again back to them at full volume. There were definitely some eyes glistening on stage, although I’m grateful they held back on full happy tears because I have cried TOO MUCH at concerts this year, and if they’d sobbed, I would have sobbed and it would have been Mia Wray/Greenday/Oasis/whatever else I cried at this year all over again.
I keep saying this is my end to the 2025 gig season, though with a couple of weeks of the year left I’m not sure that’s really true, but if it is, what a wonderful way to see out this incredible year of live music.
Find out more about Chloe Dadd here.
Find out more about The Buoys here.