Review: mgk at RAC Arena
mgk at RAC Arena
w/ Honestav, Will Swinton
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
A decapitated Statue of Liberty—a highly styled, life-size, headless icon of the American dream—loomed over the stage alongside a cigarette-shaped “fire” mic stand. Welcome to The Lost Americana Tour, the latest spectacle from mgk (that’s Machine Gun Kelly, the provocative figure splashed across tabloids for his bloodsucking romance with Megan Fox), hitting four Australian cities this month. The last time he touched down in Perth was 2018’s 27 Tour at Metro City, where he played to a crew of maybe 150. Scanning RAC Arena on Wednesday, April 8, there were a few bumless seats scattered through the stands—something he clocked mid-set, joking he had to “put my toes online to sell some tickets”. But Aussie fans clearly lurk in secret, vampiric corners: Melbourne sold out.
Both openers brought the goods. Will Swinton, a 22-year-old from Auckland, was last seen bouncing on a trampoline before couch-surfing his way across America, where his career took off, and Missouri’s Honestav, who carried the energy of a kangaroo—or roo, if we’re speaking mgk’s language. Both tangled their sets with comedic beats about meeting the man himself, promising the crowd he’s exactly the person they think he is. Honestav won the meet-cute contest: stuck in the nosebleeds, snuck into the pit where his mate was, snuck backstage, casually invited mgk to his house, as you do, and six years later, there he was, opening for him. But where Honestav took crowd engagement, Swinton’s sultry, melancholic voice powered every early-2000s rock ballad he sang, joking that most of it was a live debut; good luck finding it online.
Before the chaos, lost americana sat in big white block letters, waiting for its spectacular dazzle of blue and red lights to flicker into motion. Then mgk set foot on stage, blasting out in the same patchwork red-and-white jacket from the album artwork. His eyes hidden behind white-and-black specs—you’d be forgiven for thinking it was serving a little Willy Wonka. Unlike pop stars with their succinct, comfort-zone 90-minute regime, mgk’s setlist covered a whopping 30-something songs, sprinkling in covers like Paramore’s ex-envy anthem Misery Business and blink-182’s I Miss You. Sure, there was grumbling that he isn’t a cover act—but it was a fresh approach to showing off his musical DNA, the very artists who helped unearth his sound. There was even new material: a grunge-esque collaboration with Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit, which mgk had been testing with crowds, happily debuted for Aussie fans since he won’t be back for a while.
bloody valentine, the pop-punk tune about the chaos of a new relationship, offered the first glimpse into how strong his connection ran with the crowd. Red, lacy bra-clad backup dancers bound him and taped his mouth shut, giving muse-like figures their moment—female faces from the audience splashed across the giant screens like a basketball kiss-cam, more girls dancing onstage, including two little ones with their mother. mgk gifted them Valentine’s presents: guitar picks. Amidst the light-up posters—one fan clutching an A3-sized sign for most of the night, its corners lit with fairy lights—he made it a point to turn the arena into a living room, skirting through the beer-soaked floor crowd to land on the B stage. There, faced towards the back of the pit, the platform elevated enough that it played like a rockstar rooftop show, he paid acoustic homage to Glass House and time of my life.
Despite ignoring RAC’s anti-smoking rules—not only lighting up onstage but also sharing with the Statue of Liberty until a puff of smoke blasted out of its own mouth—mgk showed a softer side reserved for his daughters, Casie Colson Baker and Saga Blade Fox-Baker. He quite literally played play this when i’m gone, a video montage of moments with his daughters flickering behind him, from red carpets to intimate baby shots. But he didn’t linger. The tattoo-speckled rockstar camouflaged himself as an older Justin Bieber and broke into choreography, his razor-blade-shaped guitar shooting out fireworks during papercuts.
Was mgk’s Aussie tour record-breaking ticket-wise? Probably not. But where it undersold, he oversold in creativity—influencers and alien cartoons reviewing his eras as interval breaks, stirring up the audience into debates; he lacked nerves around blending performance into the crowd, spotting a fan whose lower lip he’d tattooed with zero memory of it. Alongside his star-worthy band—prime suspects being guitarist Sophie Lloyd, whose long blonde hair floated down her back like an anti-polished Barbie, and drummer JP “Rook” Cappelletty—mgk proved that whatever you think of him, the man knows how to put on a show.
RACHEL FINUCANE
Photos by Adrian Thomson
