Review: Shinedown and Bush at Perth HPC

Shinedown and Bush at Perth HPC
w/ Coast Arcade
Tuesday, September 29, 2026

To wrap up their massive co-headline tour of Australia and NZ, Shinedown and Bush arrived at Perth HPC on a quiet Tuesday—neither band having toured Perth since the days of Soundwave. Their dedicated fans were treated to a surprisingly intimate performance from the two world-famous bands. Chosen support for the night was the young(ish) New Zealand four-piece, Coast Arcade.

After supporting Silversun Pickups in July, Coast Arcade have been upgraded to arena status on their second visit to Perth this year. Co-founded by frontwoman Bella Bavin and drummer Thom Boynton, they easily took control of the growing crowd, opening with Afterthought and playing tracks from their debut self-titled album. Their pleasing and extremely catchy grunge/pop sounds quickly won over the crowd, and their second track, Greener, instantly got people moving. Showing that they are genuine fans of the era, we were treated to a solid cover of Velvet Revolver’s Slither, giving singer/guitarist Bavin and guitarist Arlo Birss a chance to really shred together.

A broken guitar string wasn’t an issue for bass player Leo Spykerman, as the band played through the singles from their 2025 release. Before playing the hugely popular Acetone, Bavin shared that when she was young, she would listen to Shinedown and Bush with her dad in the car (instantly making over half the crowd feel extremely old) and mentioned the Shinedown song Cut the Cord as one of her favourites. They finished their set with Baited, a fun and upbeat song about trying to avoid conflict. Coast Arcade’s 90s/2000s-inspired sounds created the perfect start to the evening for the two bands to follow.

Without warning, the house lights went down, and we were hit with blinding blue and white lights pulsating in time to the sounds of synths. While the audience was blinded, drummer Nik Hughes made his way up to his kit and started playing, followed by the rest of the band, with frontman Gavin Rossdale sporting a white raincoat. While Rossdale and bass player Corey Britz greeted the crowd with arms in the air, lead guitar player Chris Traynor had the job of launching into the distinctive distorted riff that was the intro to one of the biggest and most well-known hits, Everything Zen (from their debut album, Sixteen Stone, released in 1994). It was hard to overstate just how iconic the intro to this song was, with the punchy drums, wailing guitar and Rossdale’s raspy vocals.

After a quick costume change for Rossdale (from raincoat to muscle tee), the band launched into Bullet Holes—one of two songs they would play from 2020’s The Kingdom—and the famous end-title track in John Wick 3, a song with dark undertones and heavy distortion which blended in seamlessly with their older material. Then, after greeting the crowd and complaining that we were “so far away”, they began to play The Land of Milk and Honey, a track from their newest album I Beat Loneliness. Fittingly, the performance also saw Rossdale overcome his disappointment with the distance between him and the crowd by getting up close and personal with the fans up front.

Next up was the classic loud/quiet/loud sound of Machinehead. “Breathe in, breathe out,” Rossdale asked, requesting our help to sing this one with him, and the crowd was ready to do so. We were treated to more banter from Rossdale. He wondered why Perth had been so quiet on Monday, and upon finding out that it was the King’s Birthday, he remarked that he probably wouldn’t celebrate that! Everyone laughed and sang along to The Chemicals Between Us, another massive one that got everyone moving.

“This is a really special tour for us,” Rossdale said, and he apologised for not making it to Perth last time. He then explained that, sadly, this was the last tour booked by their manager, Peter Katsis (PK), who had sadly passed in August. Rossdale dedicated the next song to him, to anyone else who was struggling, and implored us all to go out, listen to music and “leave your cares and worries behind”. He asked the crowd to turn their torches on, and the arena began to glow as thousands of lights waved back and forth. Onstage, Rossdale began to strum the slow, emotional and melancholic chords of arguably Bush’s biggest song, Glycerine. In an arena full of so many people, the experience still managed to feel intimate, as it was just the crowd and Rossdale singing. A truly magical moment.

After the tracks Human Sand and More Than Machines (both from 2022’s The Art of Survival), Rossdale complained again about the distance between himself and the audience, which was the band’s cue to play Flowers on a Grave. Rossdale then bridged the chasm between the crowd and himself by throwing himself directly into the pit. If you had been following the reports of lip-syncing, you would have agreed that it was impressive that Rossdale managed to keep singing so well while running through the crowd, hugging his fans, essentially doing an entire lap of the arena, visiting almost every section and greeting everyone along the way. To have a frontman run through the crowd like this, with little security, was a huge treat for the fans, many of whom used it as a chance to get a selfie with the star.

We were then treated to I Beat Loneliness, the third track that night from the album of the same name. Rossdale used this as a chance to have a boogie before putting his silver guitar back on for the final song of the night, another track from their first album and the perfect finale song, Comedown. For a moment, the entire band stopped playing altogether while the audience took over the chorus. It wasn’t the longest set, but the Bush fans left feeling satisfied.

For the changeover, some Bush fans went out into the rain, while Shinedown fans moved closer to the front to get ready to see a band they had obviously been waiting for forever to see. Having only ever played in Perth on a side stage at Soundwave in 2010, this visit to promote their new album EI8HT on the Dance, Kid, Dance tour was a long time coming.

As everyone waited for Shinedown, the character nicknamed “TV Guy” came out. TV Guy was a man in a suit with an old-school television for a head and he felt very 80s as he danced around to Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer. Apparently, he was there to remind people to be present—but with no explanation, many people were left confused by this character and the song. After a quick “bring back Bush!” chant from a fan, Shinedown took to the stage.

Opening with a song from the new album, Safe and Sound, Shinedown kicked things off with a bang! Many bangs, in fact, as the fireworks and pyrotechnics were a huge part of the show. The second track Diamond Eyes (Boom-Lay Boom-Lay Boom) from the movie The Expendables was a big crowd favourite, with everyone singing, dancing and clapping along. With almost every song having explosive visual effects, it was hard to not be entertained, and perhaps they even won over some Bush fans that stayed to see the show.

After a fiery performance of Devil (with the whole stage in flames), frontman Brent Smith encouraged us to turn to our neighbour, give them a high five, and to tell everyone how nice it was to see them at the show! After making friends, the perfect follow-up was the track Enemies (from 2012 album Amaryllis), definitely one of the biggest crowd pleasers of the night.

He then instructed the crowd to move so that he could run into the crowd—a huge treat for the fans to get so close to their idol. This was followed by another speech from Brent about being inclusive, as he asked, “What’s the meaning of life? To live it!” before playing the 2023 single A Symptom of Being Human. This called for the house lights to be turned up so we could all see each other, with torches on and waving, before the set continued with Cut the Cord and Monsters among the highlights.

Like Bush, Shinedown also suffered a loss this year, with the passing of close friend Brad Arnold of the band 3 Doors Down. They honoured their friend with a cover of the instantly recognisable hit Kryptonite, followed by their very popular cover of the Lynyrd Skynyrd song Simple Man, another chance for everyone to sing along. Even though that could have been a perfect ending, Shinedown turned the tempo back up, playing Sound of Madness and Second Chance, which both had a strong country sound. Overall, they delivered an extremely professional and entertaining show (no accusations of lip-syncing here; Smith was working that microphone!).

An interesting choice of two bands to co-headline a tour. Was there enough people who are fans of both bands to fill arenas? Or perhaps due to the date of the concert, it was a fairly small turnout. While they both served up excellent performances, they both might have been better served to be their own headliners, possibly in slightly smaller venues.

AMY DRISCOLL

Photos by Paul Dowd