LIVE: MEN AT WORK & ELLA HOOPER – Fremantle | Walyalup, 12 November 2026

LIVE: MEN AT WORK & ELLA HOOPER – Fremantle | Walyalup, 12 November 2026
Fremantle Prison, Western Australia
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
Photos by Linda Dunjey

First up, Ella Hooper regales the engorging crowd with a selection of mostly solo material, her folky style flecked with a little modern country pop (she’s wearing a stylish jumpsuit which looks a little like the famous Nudie suits of country music legend) and thoroughly enjoyable on a lovely warm Spring evening. She calls Small Town Temple a love song to her hometown and Mum’s house, a 110-year old weatherboard church. “From a church to a prison,” she grins, whilst Grow Wild is about her friendship with four besties from kindergarten days and them growing up “free range” in a country town.

Hooper has matured into a top notch songwriter and confident performer – even before her set finishes there are plenty of people walking back from the merch stand carrying her new LP – and when she hits her Killing Heidi hits Mascara and Weir we’re transported back to the ‘90s by her honied vocals.

Colin Hay is looking natty in a white suit, jokes with the crowd and is clearly enjoying playing in the town he first arrived in 1967, aged 14, having emigrated with his family from Scotland. He soon moved to Melbourne and now lives in L.A. and has assembled a gun outfit under the moniker of his former band.

Which is exactly how he refers to Men At Work throughout his set: “my old band.” Which seemed odd, considering this is billed as a Men At Work show – despite it being, really, The Colin Hay Experience, given he plays a clutch of solo songs (Broken Love, Looking for Jack, Come Tumblin’ Down and Can’t Take This Town), alongside those of his “old band.”

None of this is a criticism: he’s a fine songwriter, and his band are on fire, but it’s the big hits which made Men At Work, briefly, one of the biggest bands in the world, and that’s what the majority present want to hear and, indeed, are familiar with.

American guitarist Allen Hinds and Cuban bassist Yosmel Montejo are on fire, trading tasty licks all night long, while drummer Jimmy Branly (another Cuban) hits hard enough to be in a far rockier band. The wild cards in the lineup are the two women virtuosos – Californian Rachel Mazer plays keys, sax and flute to tremendous effect, while Cecilia Noël (Mrs Colin Hay, by the way, and a star in her own right in her native Peru and the rest of South America where she was once known as the “Latin Tina Turner”) provides an eye catching, lycra-clad, never-still distraction and all the while manages to contribute backing vocals and a plethora of percussion instruments to the mix.

They run through a succession of lesser-known Men At Work tracks (including Touching the Untouchables, No Restrictions, I Can See It in Your Eyes, No Sign of Yesterday, Down By The Sea – complete with an anecdote about writing it high on “Aghani tripping weed”) but it’s the clutch of hits that get the crowd standing, dancing and roaring along.

And why not? They may not have ninety minutes of hits to pad a setlist out but as a run of near-classics go, Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive’s, Overkill, It’s a Mistake, Who Can It Be Now? and singalonga favourites Down Under (worth more to Vegemite than any advertising campaign ever could) and Be Good Johnny, is a stretch most acts would kill for.

Set List:

Touching the Untouchables
No Restrictions
Broken Love
I Can See It in Your Eyes
Looking for Jack
High Wire
Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive
Come Tumblin’ Down
Can’t Take This Town
Down by the Sea
Everything I Need
Catch a Star
No Sign of Yesterday
Overkill
It’s a Mistake
Who Can It Be Now?
Down Under
Be Good Johnny

Category: Live Reviews, Photo Galleries