Baxter Dury: A Self-Indulgent Set Of Disco & Swagger At The Roundhouse

“I love you Melbourne!” roars Baxter Dury, the flamboyant London pop-punk idol through gritted teeth. “Scream!” he commands, “I said Scream!” The five-hundred fans who fill the UNSW Roundhouse oblige. A roar erupts through the room.

Yet within it, a slight bafflement. “We’re in Sydney!” an audience member hollers after Dury as he walks off stage. He doesn’t seem to hear.

Despite repeatedly rectifying this mistake through the four-song encore, this error summarises the duality of Dury’s performance on April 29. On one hand, there is no doubt the artist loved the audience before him. For the entire hour and fifteen minutes he had poured everything he had into proving that fact. Yet, apparently, he did not love them enough to know where they were from.

It is a defensible mistake. Dury was only in Melbourne the night before, and touring in another country is no mean feat. Yet to me it solidified a question of authenticity I had grappled with all night.

Dury’s music is indulgent. Recorded, his deep, dry London accent swaggers over funky bass, catchy disco beats, and flowery synth riffs. His spoken poetry directly references the listener, and almost aggressively asserts itself. Tongue in cheek narratives wedge between harmonised vocals which fill simple, catchy choruses.

Naturally, Dury’s music is rife for an extravagant performance. Yet, at the Roundhouse, touring his most recent 2025 album Allbarone – his most dance-focused album yet – he addressed the audience with such pompous self-indulgence, it at times transcended extravagance.

In a white two-piece suit, and with gold chains adorning an exposed chest, the performer sauntered into the spotlight at the fore of the stage. With the bass-heavy music of Alpha Dog emerging from the drummer, guitar/bassist, and a synth/vocalist (who used a vocoder to modulate her vocals into beautifully catchy harmonies) behind him, he wasted no timelaunching his plea for applause.

Between lyrics, as his band delivered their infectious disco, Dury would move as if a model at a photoshoot. Switching between various positions, and holding poses for comical lengths, he would glare out at us – asking with his eyes, “do you see how cool I am?” Then, as if not satisfied, he would swagger to the edge of the stage, and beckon with his hands for applause.

For much of the night this routine felt forced. Only a smattering of the audience gave Dury what he desired, and he seemed to merely cycle through a familiar playbook. Though finally, as he refused to give up his attempts to make us cheer, in the final stretch of the night, something changed.

All night Dury’s arrogant dancing had been contrasted with the way he presented his lyrics.

They had held far more venom than on record. He would grit them through his teeth, letting fly a string of enraged poetry before recoiling suddenly from the microphone. Then, swept up by the energy of a song, he would rip the microphone from its stand to stride up and down the front of the stage, spitting his words to the crowd.

Here, in these moments of veracious emotion, the audience had responded loudest. So, toward the end, as the set evolved into beloved songs, the level of this reaction only grew.

Feeding off the new energy, Dury seemed to also then pour more energy into his act. During the final four songs before the encore – Miami, Cocaine Man, Allbarone, and Schadenfreude – each a certified dance floor hit, it seemed his façade had finally fallen away. With a sly grin and propelled by the sea of flailing arms before him, he again approached the edge of the stage to ask us to cheer. Though, now it no longer felt inauthentic.

Rather than asking for our love, he instructed us to let go, be free, and have fun.

At the end of Schadenfreude, when he finally yelled “I love you, Melbourne!” and commanded us to scream, I believe he really did mean it. He loved us, and genuinely didn’t care where we were from. Though at the same time, with a performance of such self-indulgence behind him, it is hard not to think that he only loved us because we loved him too.