Review: The Jungle Giants @ Hindley Street Music Hall 20/06/26
Hindley Street Music Hall was a dance party, a manic pit of people Experiencing Feelings of Joy.
Words & Images Satine Richmond
The Jungle Giants w/The Tullamarines & Tear Drive @ Hindley Street Music Hall 20/06/26
Brisbane indie-pop heavyweights The Jungle Giants rolled into Adelaide for the sixth stop of their Experiencing Feelings of Joy tour. Even on a cold June night, a line snaked down Hindley Street, fans wrapped in their jackets, or just braving the brisk wind on the sidewalk. Touring their fifth studio album, the band are hitting 26 venues across Australia.
Brisbane band Tear Drive wasted no time announcing themselves as a single guitar strike cut through the chatter. Their set moved between grittier alternative rock tracks like ‘Where Did You Go Last Night?’, showcasing the band’s punchy, hectic energy, and shimmering pop songs like ‘Lost in a Moment’.
“If you guys are at the back you better come up closer because we are here,” frontman Baxter Melrose called out, sending a ripple of laughter through the hall. Melrose navigated the transition between each song with a humorous confidence, keeping the crowd engaged. Members Gabe Kolakowski and Isaac Clark jammed on their guitars while Nic Pezzimenti kept the set’s momentum on the drums. It was a tight, impressive set that perfectly picked up the energy and proved exactly why they were chosen to join the tour.
Local favourites The Tullamarines followed, kicking off with ‘Lying’, then ‘Gimme Luv’. But almost immediately, things went sideways as a stubborn technical difficulty forced the band to stall. Frontman Ben Waltho joked, “This feels like stand-up comedy, but I’m not funny, so it’s just stand up,” leaning into the awkwardness as they tried to sort the problem out.
Pushing ahead, their triple j Like A Version cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’ landed perfectly. Later, during ‘Head Roll Back’, Waltho stepped away from the mic entirely, letting the crowd scream the chorus back at the band. They closed with ‘Running on Empty’, the song the room had been waiting for. The crowd erupted as fans sang every word back at them.
A live video feed flashed across the screen, following The Jungle Giants’ lead singer Sam Hales up to the stage before he bounded across it. The band barely paused between songs, launching from ‘Tell Me How It Feels’ into the unmistakable opening of ‘Sending Me Ur Loving’, streams of red shooting across the ceiling. “This is sick! Let’s have some fucking fun,” Hales yelled excitedly. Purple and red pulses of light ebbed to the beat of ‘Lovesick’, before the band joined in to start the song. The energy was palpable, the bright strobes exploding during these high-energy dance hits.
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Only after ‘Love Signs’ did the band take a break, letting the crowd know, “This has become one of our favourite tours.” The crowd cheered. Hales followed with “We thought maybe we’d just play a couple of songs from when we were kids.” The crowd skewed older, with people who had been following The Jungle Giants since their early triple j days. Knowing this, the band weaved in ‘She’s A Riot’ from their 2013 debut album Learn To Exist.
Bassist Andrew Dooris was a blur of motion, bouncing from one side of the stage to the other. He had the room in the palm of his hand, leading clap-alongs and getting up close to dedicated fans in the front row. Commanding the drums was Keelan Bijker, whose playing was tight, powerful, and consistently on point. With the drum kit pushed to the front of the stage for a change, he fed directly into the crowd’s energy. “We can see you guys singing, dancing, we can see you shaking your asses,” Hales laughed. He introduced “crowd cams”, encouraging fans to take pictures in the crowd then “chuck it back to The Jungle Giants.”
After a high-energy performance of ‘Feel The Way I Do and Is It Love?’, the rest of the band left the stage as Hales took his seat at a piano, a spotlight above him. At the close of slow-tempo melody ‘World’s Getting Smaller’, the others returned, gradually rebuilding the sound until the ballad swelled into something fuller. They pushed seamlessly into ‘On Your Way Down’, where the energy snapped back instantly. Sam scaled high notes with effortless control, his vocals soaring above the sound of the band.
Lead guitarist Cesira Aitken is amazingly talented, smoothly performing runs up the neck of the guitar as her hair fell in front of her face. She was a calm and grounded presence, left of stage, taking relaxed sips of beer between songs as if delivering that level of precision in a packed venue was the easiest thing in the world.
After ‘In A Nice Way’, Hales addressed the crowd once more, “There are a lot of singers in the crowd - how are your voices feeling?” The audience responded with vigour, cheering in response. “And for the dancers in the crowd, how are your legs?”
The opening notes to long-time crowd favourite ‘Used To Be In Love’ sparked a wave of recognition, fans turning to their friends as they sang the first lines without hesitation. Dance tracks ‘Heavy Hearted’ and ‘A Moment Like That’ followed, pushing the room into full party mode, the crowd erupting each time the beat dropped. At this point, it was obvious the band weren't interested in anything except keeping the crowd moving. Hindley Street Music Hall was a dance party, a manic pit of people experiencing feelings of joy.
Suddenly, the lights dropped and the band set down their instruments, slipping offstage without any words. For a moment, the audience stood in confused silence, unsure whether an encore was coming or if the 90-minute dance marathon had reached its end. The answer arrived quickly as the house lights rose. With LeAnn Rimes’ ‘How Do I Live’ floating across the venue, the crowd began belting the chorus together as they filed out. It was an unexpectedly perfect comedown, the chaotic, joyful sing-along matching the energy The Jungle Giants had spent the night building in Adelaide.
