Radio Free Alice Farewell Australian Shores With Sold Out Shows

As they get ready to make the (seemingly) permanent move to London next month, Melbourne-based Radio Free Alice are saying their goodbyes to local fans with a mini-tour of Australia’s east coast.

They have found upward trajectory since their first single release in 2020, joining the local festival circuit and opening for The Killers in Australia last year.

They begin their tour with a sold-out appearance at the Oxford Art Factory on a muggy Friday evening in Darlinghurst, not far from the record store they were named after.

Opening acts The Engine and Bennetts Grove both kill it, but unfortunately play to an unresponsive crowd, bar the odd sway of an audience member’s head. While they have a similar post-punk image to Radio Free Alice, the music of both is darker and heavier. The Engine have a real energy about them. The frontman screams his lyrics, which combines well with the heavy instrumentation. Bennetts Grove shifts between a more classic atmospheric post-punk to an impressive wall of sound toward the end of their set.

You can feel excitement in the murmuring crowd as they wait for the headliners to emerge. They open with one of their biggest songs, Look What You’ve Done. The angular guitar-playing echoes New York icons The Strokes and Television, and the crowd sing along to the opening track.

The band is very tight and clearly well-rehearsed. Cutting their teeth on festival circuits and substantial touring appears to have done its job.

After the opening song, the first half of the set builds energy but the crowd is yet to break out in substantial movement. The band wears their influences more explicitly mid-set with a surprising cover of Gang of Four’s 1978 classic Damaged Goods.

There’s a significant gear shift in the crowd as the band breaks into fan favourites Johnny and Paris is Gone. The former is a Smiths-y number with a bouncy bassline, jangling guitar and baritone, pained vocals. In the latter song the crowd erupts into the mosh-iest they’ve been all night. People are getting knocked over and someone in front of me is hurriedly searching for their glasses on the floor with a phone torch.

The band disappears after playing Waste of Space and re-appear for a one-song encore of Fire Warning. Fire Warning would fit sonically on the 2000s soundtrack of the Inbetweeners, alongside bands like the Arctic Monkeys and The Libertines.

The band makes their final exit from the stage, for a total set time of around 50 minutes, as 500 punters scramble for the exit.

While the image of Radio Free Alice is quite dark and brooding, the reality of their live performance is a poppy, polished set very true to the sound of their recorded output. This disconnect between image and substance was at times distracting, but their fans didn’t seem to mind.

They have five dates remaining on their Australian tour, including another show at the OAF in a month’s time. They then have a small run of shows so-far announced across the UK and US.

It’ll be interesting to see what kind of profile the band can build stationed on the Atlantic.