Review: Hilltop Hoods at RAC Arena

Hilltop Hoods at RAC Arena
w/ Maverick Sabre, Trials
Saturday, March 21, 2026

Australian music royalty Hilltop Hoods, easily one of the best things to come out of Adelaide in several decades, returned to Perth for the first time in four years to conclude their national Never Coming Home arena tour. Combining the last stop of this journey with the largest audience of the entire trip, the group promised this set would be their loosest on stage in quite some time.

Tonight’s festivities kicked off with Trials, formerly of A.B. Original and the Funkoars. Conducting his very first solo performance in Perth, Trials stood alone under the spotlight, sharing the space with a guitar and MPC drum machine, the very first instrument he ever recorded music with. A showcase for Hendle, his debut solo album, due to drop in May, Trials sang of small-town South Australia and the struggles of bitterly dysfunctional families. Broadly autobiographical, these gaunt, sombre and often heart-breaking tales were delicately balanced with others of affirmation, self-improvement, and triumph.

The lead single what’s the colour of love? was a strikingly direct demand for men to do better and to keep their families safe. The sentiment and lyrics cut deep, as the artist poured a large portion of himself into the work. At the end of the set, Trials declared it had been a pleasure to spill his soul to us all, and the love, appreciation, and applause from the crowd lingered long after he had departed the stage. May the upcoming album cycle be deservedly spectacular.

Next to the fore was rapper Maverick Sabre, who came across the globe for this tour all the way from Ireland. With a bulging grab bag of influences on direct display, Sabre’s set was for the most part downtempo and chill, that distinctive sense of, you know it when you hear it, slow-jam British R&B, with even some inflections of reggae and trip-hop also in the mix. With Sabre’s vocals lilting and warbling, this was music to relax into rather than full-volume intense—with tracksuits and bucket hats as premier onstage fashion, the late nineties were back with a vengeance.

No better example could serve that point than the inclusion of one of Sabre’s favourite bands, Mancunian but this evening considered spiritually Irish, and suddenly the entire sellout RAC crowd lustily sang along to Don’t Look Back in Anger—one of Oasis’ best, to be sure, but a track totally unexpected in the context of tonight.

Hilltop Hoods came to the stage with an orchestral overture and a delightfully humorous video, where they left Adelaide Airport via their own branded plane, while a similarly branded semi-trailer made it across the Nullarbor with all the equipment as the cameras then covered the RAC build-up, both the stage construction and the gathering crowds. The editing involved must have only been finished minutes before. Glitter cannons exploded, and Leave Me Lonely ensued.

The comfortably familiar piano refrain of Chase That Feeling came next, followed immediately by the power of The Nosebleed Section; the iconic Melanie Safka sample provided extended space to breathe tonight, almost given more crowd love all to itself than the rest of the song. Almost. The Hoods raced around the stage as they sang, jumping like pogo sticks for extended periods—it was perhaps not quite a half marathon over the course of the night, but the energy levels of both the band and the fans were extremely high throughout.

Pausing a moment for audience interaction, the group stated they had an affinity and a kinship with Perth, which the crowd lapped up with a happy, knowing grin. By the subsequent call and response, it appeared around half those in attendance had been to a Hilltops show before, with the other half being first-timers. And then, actual fireworks—ironically enough, during 1955, the team’s collaboration with Montaigne about Adelaide was considered in song as an atrophying time capsule.

The fantastically clean lighting on the stage floor, akin to the racing lines of Tron, suddenly took on board an HSE dynamic for the band members to steer clear of the occasional sparks and flames. The Hoods continued to bring multiple collaborators to the spotlight, in those moments appearing extremely humble to simply step back and foreground each of their guests.

Of all the tracks from the latest album, Fall from the Light, perhaps the catchiest was Don’t Happy, Be Worry, introduced tonight with the first verse of Bobby McFerrin’s 1988 classic—the Hilltops’ version being less an interpolation and rather more a complete and utter inversion. Very 2026, the song listed many of the terrible forces currently arrayed against common decency, from the climate crisis to online Nazis. It remained extremely and eminently hummable though.

As close to a solo project as the overall band has ever released, and most definitely the emotional crux of the entire evening, Through the Dark powerfully showcased Pressure’s storytelling ability with the achingly personal lyrics about son Liam’s cancer treatment over a decade ago. The spotlight was fully on Pressure, stage fog curling around his feet, and the audience’s phone torches held aloft. When the song ended, the release of collective breath was absolutely cathartic.

The concert concluded with the shouted refrain “Fuck Bill Cosby!”, which led through to the moment the fans had craved all evening, Cosby Sweater. Somehow the fact their lead character had been jailed for terrible crimes had not taken any power from the track and just perhaps had elevated any meaning from its original release through to now. With the studio version pure electric energy already, the band certainly left nothing in reserve with this encore, creating a four-minute burst of the most enjoyably visceral semi-chaos, all underneath the most bracingly garish stage visuals of the night.

A triumphant coronation of a show, with glitter, flames, and fireworks galore, attended by an absolutely adoring audience, and at its core a group of consummate storytellers stacked with talent to burn, there can only be one question left after this evening—how on earth will they top this when they next tour? It is all but certain the team has a million conceptual ideas already.

PAUL MEEK

Photos by Stu McKay