Review: The Streets at Fremantle Arts Centre

The Streets at Fremantle Arts Centre
w/ Shady Nasty
Sunday, March 8, 2026

Mike Skinner and The Streets have long had a love affair with Australia—and the feeling has been mutual. This relationship was mostly built on The Streets’ first two brilliantly original albums that were defining of that mid-2000s era and some great festival sets. Even with some long breaks between albums and tours, they’re always welcomed back with open arms and always put on a good show, but this album tour seemed particularly special. Mike and the band were in top form on Sunday at a sold-out Freo Arts Centre, delivering a tour-de-force performance of his grand opus A Grand Don’t Come For Free, and much to the crowd’s delight, a whole lot more!

Despite his distinctly British lad language, mentality, London life lyrics and beats, there’s something about his working-class “day in the life of a geezer” shenanigans with mates and girls that resonated with us here too. Maybe it’s because he spent a formative year or so in Sydney when he was 19, chasing a girl here, before splitting up. While he was working odd jobs around town, he was also working on his music on his laptop and was inspired to write some of the early material that would go on to form his trailblazing 2002 debut album, Original Pirate Material.

It was unlike anything else at the time, with its stripped-back production and unique conversational vocal style, which went on to have a huge influence on UK rap and what has evolved into the bass, grime and UKG scene these days. Growing up in Birmingham, Skinner’s unique style came out of the 90s rave scene, jungle, garage, 2-step and hip hop. He established his everyman character on his debut: the boozy lad, spliff-rolling gamer and raver, unlucky in love. Though there was a clever, deeper, philosophical edge to his intricate wordplay and a clean precision to the music that he produced entirely on his own. A modern street beat poet.

But it was on his ambitious sophomore effort that saw him blow up; A Grand Don’t Come For Free was the greatest concept album of a generation. World-building a whole narrative around his protagonist, with each song a piece in the puzzle of this relatable story. He starts off down on his luck, having a bad day and losing a thousand pounds, before meeting a girl and falling in love, then losing trust in his mates and having relationship dramas, going out, getting mashed and making foolish decisions, regretting them and losing his girlfriend, before a redemptive ending. It’s an epic tale of suburban life, with all the drama, action, twists and turns of a Hollywood screenplay, all neatly contained in an 11-track, 50-minute album.

The idea of him doing this tour was raised in 2024 on the 20th anniversary of the album, but he didn’t sound interested, as he’s always been someone who’s pushed things forwards. Since his last visit in 2019, he’s been very active, seemingly reinspired, having released a string of singles, an album of collaborations (including IDLES and Tame Impala), an album that soundtracks a movie he made, and a Fabric mix. So the news that he would be coming to play the album in full was greeted with much excitement and saw it sell out well in advance.

Sydney’s Shady Nasty were in support on the evening and seemed as stoked as the crowd to be there. “What’s up? It’s our first time ever in Perth and it’s fucking mad.” The three-piece has been around for over five years, purveying their brand of post-punk vocal attitude mixed with distorted post-rock and layered loops of shoegazey guitars, but it’s been the last year since the release of their debut LP TREK (produced by Kim Moyes of The Presets) that has seen their profile rise. Collaborating with KETTAMA and Fred Again.. who called them “literally my favourite band in the world right now”, certainly does not hurt either!

They seemed a random choice of support at first, but after a couple songs it started to make sense, with a similar ethos to The Streets evident: tales of suburban life, unique sounds and rapid-fire vocals somewhere between singing and rapping, but with a more Aussie eshay edge.

Their album opener G-SHOCK had more impact live, with vocalist/guitarist Kevin Stathis spitting out the lyrics. Athlean-X off their 2021 Clubsmoke EP features more intricate, offbeat rhythmic patterns, revealing their formal jazz training. They finished on Hardstyle, the song that’s been remixed by Fred Again, playing the original, more spacey track with staccato vocals over shimmering reverb-drenched guitars.

By the time The Streets were due on at 8pm, the anticipation was palpable. As the lights went down, a “Skin-ner!” chant started up. There was a dramatic intro, some Spanish guitar and a slow piano version of Not Addicted played. The band walked on stage, Skinner strolling out in a shiny black parka, pint in hand, as they launched into the opening track, It Was Supposed To Be So Easy, to a rapturous response.

This was one album tour where you knew it was going to be played in order. And so began the story, with Mike’s distinctly early-2000s doomed mission to return a DVD (left the disc at home), getting splashed by passing cars, insufficient funds at the ATM (you couldn’t check your balance online then), failing to call Mum due to a flat battery (probably on a Nokia 6230) and dealing with a broken bulky CRT TV. Skinner is not your traditional frontman or rapper, but he’s a highly engaging and entertaining narrator, giving real protagonist energy.

The full band sounded great live, with keys, guitar, bass and drums, and the male and female backing vocalists were both superb. For Could Well Be In, where our young hero first meets his love, they flipped it and had the female vocalist, Roo Savill, do the chorus part, explaining why if she plays with her hair, she’s probably keen.

Not Addicted, a cautionary tale about gambling, was the first real banger. It’s a bit of a tongue twister, but Mike nailed it. It was clear the whole band had been rehearsing, as Mike confirmed later in the evening, “We did so many fucking rehearsals for this show!” They were super tight and recreated the album faithfully, with the live instruments adding depth and warmth. The stage set was fairly minimal, with a backdrop of the classic album cover featuring Mike leaning against the iconic British bus stand and some tasteful use of lighting.

Blinded By The Lights is always a highlight; it sounded amazing with the backing vocalists adding another dimension to the track—the defining ecstasy club experience. Dramatic synth stabs over a shuffling garage beat, as he waxes lyrical with vivid imagery of a big night out at a rave that gets more hazy as it goes on.

Despite its amusing lyrics, Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way is actually a really sweet love song about enjoying chilling at home with his partner; that is, till doubt creeps in, and he gets tempted to go out with his mates. Mike sat slumped in silhouette on a monitor at front of stage, as Savill and Kevin Mark Trail sang the beautiful backing vocals together.

Get Out Of My House was performed brilliantly, with a bit of theatricality about it. Skinner and Savill duelling back and forth with each other in argument—the male/female conversation dynamic on this track was done so well. Savill shone and was really getting into playing the pissed-off girlfriend, Simone, delivering the chorus with gusto: “Go, get out of my house, please. Actually, give me back my keys.” She even gave him the finger as she was leaving the stage. Now that’s commitment to the part!

It made you realise that this album could easily translate into a full stage musical if Skinner wanted. In fact, his last album, The Darker The Shadow, The Brighter The Light, was essentially a soundtrack to a film he made that’s a “tripped-out noir murder mystery” set within London’s clubland.

Fit But You Know It still rocks. One of his most fun, upbeat tracks that always gets people bouncing around. It provided a raucous highlight before What Is He Thinking? started to build the drama. This is where it all starts to go wrong, with confusion over Simone’s jacket and suspicion that his mate Scott stole his money and is trying to steal his girl. Only for Scott to eventually admit that the one who left his girl’s jacket… was Dan.

It’s such a great dramatic build-up to Dry Your Eyes—their biggest single that really saw The Streets cross over into the charts, and Skinner showed he could branch out in style and pen a classic, emotional heartbreak ballad as good as anyone. It was a big singalong moment, with some beautiful backing vocal harmonies.

Then it was into the epic finale, Empty Cans: the album’s final chapter, which is split into two distinct halves. Starting off all dark and grim, with depressed and angry Skinner declaring, “If I want to sit in and drink Super Tennent’s in the day, I will!” before getting into a fight with the TV repairman. The heavy, menacing, marching beat matches the vibe until halfway through, when it rewinds and restarts, and then slowly, subtly, the tune starts to brighten, becoming more upbeat and positive, as a melodic piano fades into the mix, and he figures it all out. It’s such a brilliantly constructed song, a clever turnaround, where the whole vibe lifts and becomes inspirational. Despite everyone in the crowd knowing how it ends, there were actual cheers when he delivered the victorious line, “I look down the back of the TV and that’s where it was, in all its glory, my thousand quid!” Everyone was so invested and excited; it was adorable.

It really was almost like a musical stage show, a real emotional rollercoaster, and the crowd were strapped in the whole time. The funniest thing about the whole story is that he wouldn’t have lost the money these days in the TV, since they’re all slim LEDs with no space for broken holes for money to fall in!

After taking a bow and leaving the stage to massive cheers, they were soon back, and the crowd was excited to see what was next and then proceeded to get even more excited as the opening strains of Turn The Page rang out! Such a great opener, as it was on his debut, with its stuttering garage beat and dramatic string loop, and some of Skinner’s most inspiring lyricism and imagery. A triumphant start to the second set that had the crowd roaring, “Stand by me, my apprentice. Be brave, clench fists!”

The first new(er) track of the evening was the manic, wubby dubstep of Who’s Got The Bag? from 2021, which has quickly become a live fan favourite. It became evident this was more than an encore, and we were treated to a generous second set of around 10 songs! A great selection of old and new, focusing heavily on the debut album.

Now the theatrics of the first set were out of the way, it was time to ‘put on the classics and have a little dance’. Mike seemed to relax a bit and started getting more into it, dropping certified bangers like Let’s Push Things Forward, with that more shambolic, chaotic energy he’s known for, bantering with the crowd during songs, jumping into the moshpit and performing Don’t Mug Yourself on someone’s shoulders.

As is often the case, Perth was the last stop on the tour, which makes for a fun show, and the band were in good spirits, cutting loose. “It’s the last night of our tour!” Mike said. “I wasn’t sure if I’d make it here… So I’m celebrating tonight! I don’t give a fuck about you tonight. It’s my night!”

Things got emotional again with Never Went To Church, another one of his most beautiful ballads. It’s a tender song he wrote about his father after he passed away. There were some great harmonies with Skinner alongside both backing vocalists. This iteration of his band may well be the best yet.

An absolute highlight was new track Utopia, one of the best he’s written in years, with classic Streets’ existential pondering: “Swirls of burning dumpster flames, the world is turning into hunger games” set against the angelic chorus from his long-time collaborator, Trail. “You can’t make Utopia, do what you can.” The video clip for the song is also amazing, featuring images of brutalist architecture from around Europe he captured on tour that fit in with the lyrics.

The irony of a utopian vision with what is currently going on in the world was not lost on Skinner. “I didn’t know when I came to Australia that it would be the start of World War 3,” he said, half joking and getting a bit deep for a moment. “I have become very spiritual lately… more agnostic… It’s all inside of you. Whether you call it God or infinity.” Then defusing things before it got too serious, “But we are gonna do a circle pit too!”

The Escapist, one of his best latter-day tracks, was magnificent, taken from his underrated fourth album, Everything Is Borrowed. Has It Come To This? was his first big single and the first exposure to The Streets for many, and it’s still an absolute classic. “So let’s have a little dance, shall we?” Skinner proposed as Wayne Bennett, who was superb on bass all night, locked down the low end.

Weak Become Heroes is another defining classic about the rave era—with its slowly rolling piano loop, Skinner’s monotone ponderings and the hook “The weak become heroes, then the stars align.” And to finish, he dropped his massive collab with Chris Lorenzo, the heavy new bass tune Take Me As I Am, and indulged in a bit of crowd surfing. After thanking the band and crew profusely and sincerely, he bid us farewell: “I’m gonna go away from you now, and I’m gonna do some drugs.”

They played a reprise of It Was Supposed To Be So Easy as an outro, with Skinner introducing the amazing band to huge cheers. There was such a great, contagious vibe in the air. It was kind of life-affirming to witness Mike Skinner capably taking us back through this landmark album.

Still one of the most unique live acts around, there is something joyous about The Streets’ music—in part due to its link to a more carefree, youthful past for many—of times when it was all about girls and guys, going out, hanging with your mates, videos, televisions, 64s, Playstations, a few herbs and a bit of Benson. It was a nostalgic trip but performed with conviction. The songs still resonate, and some great new material shows the story of The Streets continues, and the older and wiser Skinner still has much sage wisdom and sick beats to offer.

ALFRED GORMAN

Photos by Adrian Thomson