LIVE: Shinedown & Bush with Coast Arcade – Perth | Boorloo, 29 Sep 2026

LIVE: Shinedown & Bush with Coast Arcade – Perth | Boorloo, 29 Sep 2026
HPC Perth, Western Australia
Reviewed by Ayla Simpson
Photography by Linda Dunjey

For a few hours, on a wet Tuesday night, Bush and Shinedown arrived at Perth HPC for the final show of their Australian co-headline tour, bringing with them one last chance to give this crowd everything they had.

Coast Arcade, Bush and Shinedown may come from entirely different chapters of rock, but by the end of the night, the distance between them felt surprisingly small. These weren’t simply songs people recognised. They were songs people had carried through breakups, celebrations, lonely nights and everything in between.

Thousands of individual stories converged around songs that had soundtracked them, turning a crowd of strangers into something strangely familiar.

Coast Arcade, an indie rock band from New Zealand, were perhaps an unexpected warm-up for a crowd who had come to see two bands whose music had been part of people’s lives for years. Yet there was something immediately familiar about them. Musically, they may be the youngest bands on the bill, but there was an old soul quality to their sound that made the gap between them and the bands that followed feel much smaller.

Vocalist and guitarist Bella Bavin brought an energy that was difficult not to watch, while bassist Leo Spykerman kept the stage moving. Bella spoke about growing up listening to both Bush and Shinedown with her dad, a small detail that suddenly made the lineup feel a little more circular. These weren’t simply the bands she was opening for; they were part of the music she had grown up with. Now she was sharing a stage with them.

By the time Coast Arcade reached their final song, the venue was filling and the response was noticeably louder than when they had walked on. A crowd that had initially been waiting for Bush and Shinedown was now giving Coast Arcade their attention on their own terms.

By the time Bush were due to take the stage, the anticipation in the room was building. The front of the mosh was already beginning to compact, and there was something unexpectedly nostalgic about waiting for a band whose music had existed through so many different versions of life.

The lights went down and blue lights flashed across the stage to a pulsing bassline. Drummer Nik Hughes appeared first, launching into the opening beat as the lights flashed behind him before the rest of the band emerged.

From the opening of “Everything Zen”, the crowd was already amped, and vocalist Gavin Rossdale immediately took over the entire stage.

“Last show, let’s have some fun. Let’s see what you can do!” he told the crowd before quickly shedding his jacket after the first song. There was no easing into the set. Gavin was constantly moving, getting into the mosh, running through the venue and giving the impression that he had no intention of leaving anything behind on the final night.

“Bullet Holes”, “The Land of Milk and Honey” and “Machinehead” kept the momentum moving, before “May your Love Be Pure” brought orange spotlights sweeping across the crowd, almost like something was being ignited. The song ended with Gavin holding his guitar behind his back.

There was something particularly striking about hearing these songs live after so many years. The lyrics, new and old, felt like they had taken on new meaning with every person who had found themselves somewhere inside the words.

That feeling became impossible to ignore during “Glycerine”.

Gavin spoke about the recent passing of their friend and tour manager, Peter Katsis, asking the crowd to turn on their phone lights and dedicate the moment to him, or to anyone struggling in their own way.
As thousands of lights appeared across the room, the venue became a field of stars.

For a few minutes, the movement and noise of the show seemed to disappear. There was just a room full of people, holding up little lights for someone many had never known, while a song that had been part of so many lives played around them.

The mood lifted again with “Human Sand”. After introducing the band, Gavin walked straight into the middle of the mosh before running almost the entire length of the venue. There was a sense that he genuinely wanted to be everywhere at once, squeezing everything possible out of the final show.

Then came “More Than Machines,” “Flowers on a Grave” and “I Beat Loneliness,” bringing Bush’s newer material into the same room as songs that had been there for decades.

But “Comedown” was always going to be a significant moment for me. It was one of the first Bush songs I ever heard, and the first song I learned to play on drums. Hearing it live, now, after all these years, made the distance between then and now feel strangely compressed. I suddenly found myself seeing a piece of my younger self standing next to my present self.

The crowd sang along, turning the song into something much bigger than a performance. Every voice seemed to have its own reason for being there. The songs may have been written long ago, but somewhere along the way, they became ours.

That was what made Bush the band of the night for me. They weren’t just taking us back. They were still moving forward.

If Bush had pulled the room backwards through old memories, Shinedown completely changed the temperature.

During changeover, the rain outside was getting heavier and the crowd had thinned considerably. The floor had become a sea of empty cans, with one particularly determined guy attempting to flip one upright with his foot like a soccer ball. Eventually, others joined in with the can collecting, while staff walked through the floor handing out trays of water.

Then TV Guy appeared, striding onto the stage in his suit and television head, getting the crowd warmed up with Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” before the crimson lights flashed and pyrotechnics erupted across the stage.

A huge firework went off with enough force to make anyone without earplugs question their life choices. Just like that, Shinedown had arrived.

Opening with “Safe and Sound”, the energy shift was immediate. Vocalist Brent Smith walked out and completely owned the stage, and whatever fatigue had settled over the room a few minutes earlier was suddenly a lot harder to find.

“Devour” followed, complete with more deafening fireworks, before the band launched into a set that barely gave anyone time to catch their breath. The entire stage was being used. Guitarist Zach Myers and fill-in bassist Josh Sturm moved around each other in almost choreographed circles, while drummer Barry Kerch was impossible not to watch.

There was something loose and fun about it, too. Brent was constantly interacting with the crowd, encouraging people to high-five their neighbours and asking if Perth felt like dancing tonight. At one point, he wiped the sweat from Zach’s forehead before sticking a pick to his own forehead. It was small, ridiculous and completely human – a reminder that beneath the enormous production was a band clearly having a f*cking good time.

Shinedown acknowledged that it had been 16 years since they had last played Australia, thanking Perth for showing up on the final night.

Then came “45.” Nearby was a man visibly breaking down as he watched Brent perform it, tears streaming down his face. I don’t know his story, and I don’t need to. Whatever he was carrying, the song had found it.

After everything Bush had said about music becoming part of people’s lives, here it was again. Another song meaning something entirely different to another person in the same room. It was one of the most affecting moments of the night.

Then Shinedown did what Shinedown seemed determined to do all night; they blew the roof off again. A reversed sample and beat gave the room a moment to breathe before the full force returned, followed by more pyro and another round of fireworks. If anyone had somehow still been sleepy, that was probably the end of that.

Under softer lighting and a spinning disco ball, Brent spoke about how we all occupy this space together, on the same planet, and asked the crowd to consider what it means to live, answering that it was about actually living it.

Phone lights appeared again, people leaned into each other and sang the lyrics back, while fireworks sparkled down from above. For a moment, the enormous room felt strangely intimate. Then the mosh grew rougher, a proper pit opened up and the band pushed further into the heavier side of their sound.

The final stretch brought a cover of “Kryptonite” before “Simple Man” closed the set with another familiar song into the room. By then, Shinedown had already made their point.

Despite the years between eras, there was no sense of fatigue from any of the three bands. Coast Arcade arrived with the energy of a band at the beginning of its story, while Bush and Shinedown played like bands who knew exactly what they were capable of and had no intention of holding back.

16 years may have passed since Shinedown last played Australia, and Bush’s own history stretches back even further, but neither band looked like it had spent any time standing still.

 

 

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