[Gig Review]: DESCENDENTS ‘Run Down Under’ @ Forum Melbourne, 05.06.2026.
Event: ‘Run Down Under’ Australian Tour 2026 - Friday, 5th June 2026
Artists:Descendents ( ,US) Pinch Points (Melbourne, AUS) & The Shorts (Ballarat, AUS)
Location: Forum Melbourne, AUS
Organised By:SBM Presents
Writer:Brady Irwin
Photography:Richie Black (@richie_black_photography)
With Thanks To:
Descendents and Supports, SBM Presents, Chris Maric from Maric Media, Richie Black Photography & Forum Melbourne staff.
My previous review of this tour started out layered with a bit of pining and sentimentality. Tonight? Seething and rage were on the menu. Busting out the door with the Barwon Heads Gig Review about 75% done (with my usual helpings of neurodivergent-perfectionism driven self-admonishment kicking the can to boot), my head a flurry of moving-related dramas, I found myself steeped in cortisol like the worlds’ worst stress-martini.
After a battle of epic proportions through roadworks, Melbourne’s far-from-finest and a couple of unexpected detours, I’m basically pounding pavement to get to doors ontime. I’d missed out on covering openers The Shorts the previous time around due to a bungle between advertised open-times and actual set-times.
For the current show, I hadn’t scoped out set-times anywhere on the Events page or elsewhere, so figured landing my aching, crappy-Kmart-shoe-driven feet into the plush interior of The Forum just after 8pm ought to do it.
Historically, I’m used to Forum being reflective of the outside traffic - bustling, tip-toeing and with more than a few eager to try pushing their luck to wedge ahead of the line. Nothing. Nada. Hmm. There’s still a sizeable contingent, all things considered, splayed between the ornate stepped tiers and expansive floor of the palatial venue as The Shorts thunder out a set with little fanfare (and a lot of writer-vindication).
In the Barwon Heads review, I reflected on being somewhat jarred by the garage-pop/indie stylings of Pinch Points as ‘the opening band’ (cough). Tonight, things feel comfortably familiar as the Ballarat-ian trio ply a workhorse setlist jam-packed with chunky, no-frills, foot-to-the-pedal punk rock.
Indeed, The Shorts feels like a comfortable and satiating moniker for the group - less of your stock-standard aughts metalcore sounding name than their original 2001 moniker Severance, anyhow. Celebrating 25 years as a band, the crew are all smiles and gang-chants. Bassist/Vocalist Simon Sharp warbles out a rumbling procession of cutting, richly toned basslines, crooning in tandem with drummer Brodie Glen. Together, these two punch out snarky punk-rock vocal jabs alongside guitarist Danny Glen in a stop-start/a-capella fashion.
There’s numerous drum fills, sneaky leads and soloing and bass runs, giving the entire set a complementary and well-rounded feel. Not common in any genre, least of all punk - usually us rhythm-section monkeys are too busy clanging our pots, pans and strings!
Choice cuts [ OP resists strong urge to make bad Carcass joke here ] from the banter-reel - “This one’s about a sheriff!” Simon proclaims before going flat-stick ACAB; a very Sublime (figuratively and literally) slower reggaeton-infused janky number since “I needed a break after that one” (Simon), and various cuts inspirationally derived from working at the Mambo factory in the 90’s (“it was a loose workplace”) and both Brodie and Danny’s [alleged] illiteracy. It’s punk, to be sure (to be sure!), but there’s a lot of little flavourful additions like blues harmonica, the aforementioned three-pronged choral chants/croons/snarls and plenty of humour to round out a fantastic set.
I’m lamenting missing out on these blokes at their temporally-backwards-to-the-event-time start on Wednesday, equally lamenting the price-differential of regional and metropolitan beers, but nonetheless super sated and primed for the rest. The crowd was lapping it up as well, a healthy contingent of up-fronters and hall-flowers both raising the punks’ fists and the metalheads’ horns in cheery, beery unison between songs and on the sets’ conclusion.
Don’t be a stranger to the Melbourne stages, lads - the more punk rockers we can get back down through regional and metro gigs, the better!
A brief repose as punters start filtering in more steadily and surely. By the time it’s my second viewing and listening of upbeat positive-punks Pinch Points, there’s little to no floor-standing left. Conversations at ‘how-ya-garn’ reverberate like a choir of The Damned (heh), near ear-piercing. It is Friday and this is a punk show, after all.
Now, I didn’t exactly want to spend the second set from these guys playing a comparison game, but even for the purposes of the review it’s unavoidable. A healthier dose of distortion, backing-oomph and bigger PA gives these guys a presence that beefens up the more jangly and discordant tones heard over at Barwon Heads Hotel a couple of evenings prior. They’re still… they’re still sporting band-wide self-merch, but even the design’s gotten a little punkier and less clean-cut than the matching pink-black typeface.
The juxtaposition in crowd reactions tonight versus the cramped quarters down near Geelong’s an interesting one, too. Perhaps it’s all the deconstructed lattes, stabbings, hipsters or whatever eye-rolling trope-laden factors you want to throw at it, but there’s an interesting mix of guffawing sneer and sheer revelry within the audience. Often within/between the same clusters of people.
Overeager reviewers and punters like myself who’ve been around this bush once before are perhaps a little more relaxed about it. The Welcome To Country is received by us as earnest - always important to remind punters AND commercial landlords to ‘Pay The Rent’ (and not the rent currently closing venues across Aussie cities).
Either way, serious eyebrow-raising from me as the drunk-Dad styled dancing at my local gives way to… a proper, actual pit at the Forum for these guys! As in, people moving into each other at speed, bouncing off one another and recursively engaging in said motion! I don’t think I saw much (or any, really) of that happening at the last one. Nice. Clacking out a very spindly collection of tunes lifted from Process, Mechanical Injury (recently reissued; see below for Bandcamp link!) and Reasons To Be Anxious, the group receive a heartier and more enthusiastic reception in spite of some also quite unimpressed punkers. It’s noted that the band “were basically on hiatus until Descendents reached out to us about playing the tour - cheers for bringing us out of semi-retirement!”. Well guys, with an instantly packed Old Bar return show back in March, your Bandcamp indicating sold-out merch everywhere, and the tenor of these shows, perhaps the hat might’ve been hung a bit early, eh?
From the devilishly catchy and funky strains of ‘Jellybrain’ s harmonised bluesy riffing, the stop/start discordance tucked away in tracks like ‘Woomera’ and the more exploratory post-punk of ‘Ground Up - System Failure’, there’s more than enough riff-trickery being upheld by guitarist-vocalists Adrian Smith and Jordan Oakley to keep it musically diverse. Acacia Coates (Bass/Vocals) plies all manner of neck-bouncing bass-work to get the toes tapping, and I did give a special shoutout last time to drummer Isabella Orsini for throwing some serious punk sneer into her drummer-vocalist duo performance. The young pups are clearly energised by both bigger venue, a more mosh-ready crowd and the opulence of The Forum, and so they’re kicking it harder performance-wise too. Not being shunted into the corner of a pubs’ innards will help that along nicely as well.
They’re almost deliriously smiley and upbeat, but the satirical inflection to some tracks and mental health discourse around others (obviously ‘Reasons To Be Anxious’ is one, among others) they’ve enough earnest cred about themselves to get a huge crowd response throughout.
What’s also interesting and of note for this leg of the tour is, it’s set up almost exactly like the Barwon Heads gig. That is to say - no extensive choral interludes and meandering segues introducing bands. No ornate and plush banners and accoutrement that’d probably cost a touring band half their flight budget at the moment. No darkening or dimming of the lights; not really, anyhow. Just a bare-threaded stage with some amps, a kit and all cloistered close enough together that a band gets to play and feel just as that - a band.
Come to the Forum as I often do for metal gigs, and the comparison feels like going from watching a DIY-documentary to full-blown anime. Stripped of the usual stage-distance separation, the methodically plotted out props and leering askance glares towards the crowd, The Descendents hit the stage to raucous applause shortly after our second act. It’s a tight turnaround, and it’d better be - if the setlist is anything like Barwon’s show, they’re looking at upwards of thirty-plus tracks (granted most are sub-2-minutes’ length) to crank through.
Milo Aukerman (Vocals), Karl Alvarez (Bass), Stephen Egerton (Bass) and Bill Stevenson (Drums) are punk gods. I mean, they’re men and I take that album title No Gods No Masters to heart unironically, but… you get what I mean. We’re talking four dudes with the venerable position of spearheading an entire musical movement, as well as its’ associated counter-culture - all whilst musing simplistic titular phrases like Milo Goes To College, or in the case of tonight: Everything Sucks.
A key component of the early font of youthful aggression and anti-authoritarian sneer that kicked off the punk-rock movement. They’re godfathers. But also, you don’t need to dig far to capture some of the humility. From the suburban-everyman’s woes of their daily life lyrical consternation, through to just about everyone you meet at one of their shows having an anecdote about how they just kicked back and hung with the band for ages? Yeah, no posturing or Brady-from-Inner-Strength-Check-style murdering air with words and prose to fill space.
Milo gives a most perfunctory of greetings, announcing this is indeed a show where they’ll be playing Everything Sucks in full (“So we’re supposed to do a whole record tonight….” as expected, applause erupts) as well as a bunch of other cuts they’re not as well-practiced with. The latter quip also garners excited applause - ‘not practiced’ often translates to yummy things like ‘deep cuts’ or even ‘first times’, of which there’s plentifully both ahead. There’s no laptop with 500 VST’s required, no slow procession or audio-visual spectacle - just them, a stage, and they just farken go for it mate, as we often drawl here Down Under.
Go for it they do. The cap detonates with ‘Everything Sux’, the added patronage and ambience of The Forum giving the crowd/band-wide gang-chant refrains an almost ethereal quality. The venue gives the track a ceremonial bent, but the rock-steady lunges and driving headbangs of Stephen and Karl keep it firmly planted in the now and onstage. Milo’s sporting his adorable (darling) studded black drink-holder, dressed in as simple garb as the rest of them. No pretense, no ornate displays - just four older guys showing the swarming legion of developmentally-cross-sectional punks in the gaping pit-maw how it’s done.
I feel a little cheeky, almost, knowing that they’re not going to give half these punters the usual air-time relent between tracks Melburnians especially might be accustomed to. There’s more than a few guffaws and phwoars of “Aw WHAT?!” nearby, ‘I’m The One’ showcasing itself yet again as a number capable of bringing soaring ballad-y croons from our leant-over bespectacled frontman over the wash of choral audience members pumping fists and singing in unison. Arms around shoulders, complete strangers and rando’s grabbing one another in that wonderful comraderie you seldom get outside the circle-pit or first few rows at the average metal gig.
Locking eyes with folks around and crooning amongst ourselves, the cheers resound as everyone knows what’s coming next. Like the swelling of a drain-plug, bodies do their best to weave between other bodies in the hopes they’ll make it into the maelstrom for an intensified, caffeinated sub-40 second hardcore punk blaster. “Mug-mug-MUG!” - ‘Coffee Mug’ kicks off and goes hard, the first crowdsurfers already peeling over the falls as the circle’s indistinguishable from one another, save for some flapping mo/faux-hawks. I wish recent Inner-Strength Check contributor Sammy O’Flynn well from my pew, knowing full well the lads’ about to do as a mosh Donkey Kong does. After nearly degloving my toe at Brutefest a while back (don’t say us writers don’t make sacrifices for art, I guess), I’m on doctor’s orders to stay out of the pit til its’ healed.
It takes an errant punks’ heavy boot staunching square on said toe and the wet squelch of blood for me to sigh and trace my steps back away from that ravenous circle, that continues through to another gang-chant-rousing rendition: ‘Rotting Out’. Milo gesticulates one-handed, waving like a wand as he repeats the chorus refrain to a hall veritably booming in response with the same. “Rott-ing ooouuuuu-t, Rott-ing ooooooouu-t!” - pitch, cadence, length all in-tune as we’re celebrating three decades of these suburban-punk earworms infesting the hippocampus. Bill’s up to his usual stage-tricks of somehow smashing out an entire set with mouth gurned tight, eyes closed up at the ceiling, never missing any of those many flat-stick d-beats and tight, cymbal-thwacking rolls over the palm-muted chugs. The whole adage about “I can do this with my eyes closed?” - yeah, that’s Bill, and he’s just as much a gun as the others.
‘Myage’ shows for a lot of us, but there’s a healthy contingent of Z’s and Alphas belting out the lyrics as punk godfathers more than a generational step above them rock on Karl’s warbling bassline intro, bopping and jumping to the staccato shouts through the verses. “She don’t need no one” except you guys driving her, her mates and the rest of us into more of that sizeable pit-whirlpool. On the periphery, my own arms’ already getting slack with all the elbow-raising and fist-pumping, shouts of the lyrics heard over the din in all directions. It’s like a Forum-wide interactive art-piece; few to none are simply standing there arms-crossed. (Metal bros, take notes).
‘Hope’ brings the forlorn and emotive crooning to a crescendo, phones whipping out like pistols in trench combat. This one was always guaranteed to give me chills, and did so at the previous gig. Amplified by booming speakers, a bigger venue and thousands more lyric-ready punks, it feels damn near orchestral. Milo’s red-faced as he reaches for that angsty lovelorn teen deep within the same time as us, and as a whole the room rocks with a fist-pumped surge of testament to waiting around whilst that girl gets sick of the other guy. Wonder what they’re all up to these days, huh?
It gets a little more streetwise and gutter-punk both musically and lyrically, all of us chanting “Those sheets are dirty” on the conclusion of ‘Clean Sheets’, another rabid number driven by the veterans to ensure pit momentum stays constantly above inert at all times. Like any good gig on a Friday, there’s a pissed-up (or pissed-off, or stimming, whatever, no judgement) posse of punters who continue circling in the brief silence. By now, you’re expecting some sort of nostalgic love-letter to Melbourne, some check-ins about how we’re doing, anecdotes about the tour, all that.
Nope. The album’s got too many songs and the goddamned setlist is taped together with two A4 pages, much like it was at Barwon (tweaked with some different cuts tonight to taste). ‘Sick-O’Me’ is another one that brings a rousing hoot of gasps and “OH YEAH”s from around me, as we cut back into it. I’m half surprised security aren’t wading through the crowd pinching errant lighters at this point; the crowd’s full carols-by-candlelight in here. There’s misty, starry-eyed folks planted squarely singing loud, bustling punks making constant thoroughfare in and out of a very-active pit. All chanting “so you don’t get sick-o-me” as they pass, grinning and applauding.
‘Caught’ is another Descendents favourite of mine and, planted on the spot by a toe I’ve definitely got to check on later, I nonetheless give myself full permission to do the Dumb Thrasher Thing (basically, headbang to as much snare and kick as you possibly can until something gives out). The bouncy, punchy riffage really does have a nascent thrash metal urgency to it, a hardcore-punk tempo and lyrics that do away with girls to invite criminally-good pitting. Smaller circle-pits are now breaking out like a viral infection, punters too impatient with the wall of folks not moving for no one getting their own business going.
This is the part of the review where I now come to announce that a play-by-play of each track means you’ll be stuck reading this article far beyond the point your bowels have evacuated (wash your hands, ya grub!). Thus, I’ll stitch together the setlist with us assuming much of the above transpires - circle-pit carnage, Milo hunched over just ahead of his two fret-bearing companions who are staunchly stomping as though it’s still the 80’s, Bill hanging on for dear life and looking equally beleaguered and ecstatic on the kit.
‘Good Good Things’ takes the volume of all prior singalongs and threatens to unshackle PA speakers from their bracings, such is the sonic weight of a thoroughly joined punk communal-croon. ‘No Fat Burger’ briefly entices wayward mosh-flies back into the buzzing orbit of the circle-pit as a brief, tasty (pun intended) and fat-free hardcore-punk rager, the silly lyrics not putting any dent in the fury. ‘When I Get Old’ feels as ironic to sing as to watch it be sung, being of the ages we and they are, but it’s nevertheless a timeless classic and the nostalgic defiance of age is something none of us really have to shed at age 18, society just loves to deign it so for the white-picket fence these guys have been critiquing for decades.
You could say I would be in the ‘Doghouse’ for not making mention of that scrappy little number tearing around the block like a methed-up Shitzu-cross. It’s important to ‘Get The Time’ in this review to really outline just how many tracks are being pummelled out in what feels like an endless procession, the only slight indication of stage fatigue being a partly breathy (but still on-point vocally) Milo. Even he hitches a breath and shirks it off, launching back into it with the band for ‘My Dad Sucks’ (“Does yours?!”) and the roof-tearing, soaring Chumbawumba chorus with reverb that is the Forum veritably breathing and singing ‘She Loves Me’ as though it’s one humanoid entity. The minimalist getup, the everyman lyrics, the acapella feedback from the crowd - it’s like a rowdy trade union gathering where all us proleteriat forgot about the polity and decided to just sing and mosh our hearts out together.
‘Weinerschnitzel’ technically bleeds into the next track ‘No! All’ in much the same way Napalm Death’s ‘You Suffer’ is a thing, but the inclusion of little blasty snippets like those get the crowd jeering as though it was a Billboard Top 100 pop smash. ‘Hateful Notebook’ brings the solemnity back, if only a little, hands outstretched to the band like we’re in Hillsong on Sunday as adolescent angst pervades a crooning, melodic hall.
They didn’t get their chance at anthropomorphism yet it seems, but we still lap up cut ‘I Wanna Be A Bear’ without… paw-se. Heh. ‘We’ being the operative word of the day, although ‘they’ (being you guys, the crowd) hoot and holler on the first chord strummed. Everyone’s so in tune with the discog, so intimately written into their own punk listening-sessions that really, none of these bear forewarning. ‘Eunuch Boy’ is anything but castrated, instead a late-gig balls to the wall surge of punker pit action that swells with the choppy tempos.
‘Bikeage’ rides us through cracks in the punk pavement, another number that receives a healthy hollerin’ on onset (and throughout). ‘I’m Not A Punk’ sneers with the same ironic timbre and sentiment it has done after all these years, band and audience proudly chanting our falsehoods with satirical pride. ‘This Place’ acts like another ballad-y murmur to help soften cardiac responses from full arrest, balming a room that isn’t really showing the usual dropoff in punters you’d see around this stage. Which is impressive, really - sonically, we’re being absolutely belted both by a relentless troupe of old-punx and a maddeningly loud roar of feedback from the chantiest audience this side of an Alestorm gig.
‘I Won’t Let Me’ write this review without sufficiently noting all the suburban punk homages included in the setlist, and it seems punks’ legs won’t let them stop either. There’s still bouncing, moshing, dancing on the spot, singing, hands waving… at this juncture, were energy an infinite resource I think we all would’ve just seen the entire discography through. ‘I Like Food’ (“Maybe some kale?!” - Milo) brings another round of more revelrous and silly punk fun to the tail end, ensuring another tabata-style burst from a bunch of punks now going some shade of maroon inside their mosh-patch.
Stretching out the last two songs of the setlist ‘officially’, ‘Suburban Home’ and ‘Thank You’ are received by the crowd as signifiers things are drawing to a close.. ish. Thus, the refrains from us and the energy poured and sweated into by these long-horns is a final bombastic display of solidarity… for now. Few if any move.
And what do the cheeky buggers do? Exactly as we expected them to, I think. Even those not privy to a previous Descendents tour or even much punk rock at all, I’d argue. The kinetic potential has been set, raised and maintained, so it’s with little hesitance that Milo, Karl, Bill and Stephen amble back onstage to rip-and-tear through an incredible encore run inclusive of the VERY pit-and-chant inducing '‘Merican’, ‘Van’, ‘Silly Girl’, 'I Don’t Want To Grow Up’ and finally, mercifully (for the band - we’re still good I think?), an all-inclusive, no-holds-barred feelgood sendoff in ‘Smile’.
So there you have it. Four guys with ages that should make you think twice about whinging that you don’t want to drive to Frankston for a show. Dudes who have every right to sit at home and rest on their laurels, king-makers basking in their legacy. Not tonight. Not this tour. It’s clear as day to anyone in attendance that this lot aren’t going quietly into that dark punk night, and we’re all the more richer, sore-throated and happier for it.
TOUR DATES:
Wed, June 3: Barwon Heads Hotel, Barwon Heads
Fri, June 5: Forum, Melbourne
Sat, June 6: Odeon Theatre, Hobart
Mon, June 8: The Gov, Adelaide
Tue, June 9: Astor, Perth
Thu, June 11: Roundhouse, Sydney
Fri, June 12: Tivoli, Brisbane
Sat, June 13: The Balcony (Coolangatta Hotel), Gold Coast
Tue, June 16: Meow Nui, Wellington
Wed, June 17: Powerstation, Auckland
TICKETS:
https://sbmpresents.com/tour/descendents-2026/
inner-strength check - links:
Check out the brand new Inner-Strength Check Patreon!
For just $5AUD/month, as a Riff Nerd you’ll gain access to bonus exclusive podcast episodes, have a say in shaping future content, have opportunities to receive giveaways and prizes, gain access to Members-only articles and more!
Thanks to all who’ve helped support us to remain independent and ad-free, cover operational costs and continue supporting numerous creative industries, artists and their communities.
Peace, Love and Grindcore - Brady & The ISC Team.