Live archive / 05
The WAAX tour register: every sourced live show, Brisbane outward
Twenty-one appearances between 2014 and 2026, each plotted from where it happened
Every WAAX live appearance recorded here rests on a festival schedule, a promoter or venue calendar, a WAAX tour announcement or a dated review. Nothing is filled in between them, which is why some rows name a venue and a day and others name only a year and a country.
Festivals, supports and headline runs
Each WAAX tour and one-off billing in the register is plotted from where it happened. The coastline is simplified and the curves connect a row in the register to a place rather than describing how anyone travelled.
City positions are plotted from real coordinates so the relative geography is honest. North American dates sit behind a single off-map marker; the cities themselves are named in the table below.
The WAAX tour register, year by year
2014
| Engagement | City | Reg. | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| BIGSOUND, Triple J Unearthed stage | Brisbane | QLD | Festival |
2017
| Engagement | City | Reg. | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| BIGSOUND | Brisbane | QLD | Festival |
2018
| Engagement | City | Reg. | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australian tour | National | AU | Headline |
| Wolf Alice, Australia and NZ support | National | AU | Support |
| Fall Out Boy, Australian support | National | AU | Support |
| Splendour in the Grass | North Byron | NSW | Festival |
| Good Things Festival | Melbourne | VIC | Festival |
| Good Things Festival | Sydney | NSW | Festival |
| Good Things Festival | Brisbane | QLD | Festival |
| Labrador tour | Adelaide | SA | Headline |
2019
| Engagement | City | Reg. | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| SXSW | Austin | US | Festival |
| Forecastle Festival | Louisville | US | Festival |
| "FU" North American tour | Multiple | US | Headline |
| Permanent Records Roadhouse | Los Angeles | US | Headline |
| Soda Bar | San Diego | US | Headline |
| The Triffid, 16 August | Brisbane | QLD | Headline |
| "I Am" national tour | National | AU | Headline |
| East coast tour, November - December | National | AU | Headline |
2020
| Engagement | City | Reg. | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Big Grief" national tour | National | AU | Headline |
2023
| Engagement | City | Reg. | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Farewell shows, The Triffid | Brisbane | QLD | Headline |
2026
| Engagement | City | Reg. | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yours & Owls Festival | Wollongong | NSW | Festival |
From Brisbane outward: what the shape says
Two years carry more than half of the WAAX live record between them, and one WAAX tour explains most of the second. 2018 and 2019 carry more than half the register between them. 2018 is the Australian peak: Splendour in the Grass, all three Good Things Festival dates, support runs with Fall Out Boy and with Wolf Alice, and a Labrador tour date in Adelaide. 2019 is the outward year, with SXSW, Forecastle and the North American headline run, alongside an Australian tour behind the single “I Am” and an east-coast run in November and December.
Brisbane bookends the whole thing. The register opens with a BIGSOUND slot in the city in 2014 and reaches the farewell shows at The Triffid in June 2023 in the same city, with the dated 2019 Triffid show in between. The most recent row is Yours & Owls at Wollongong in 2026, the first festival billing since the project reformed.
The obvious gap is everything between the announcements: the individual nights of the Australian tours, the support slots never separately listed, and the early Brisbane shows from 2012 and 2013 that predate any of the sources this register draws on. Those years are almost certainly the busiest in the band’s history and are the thinnest here, which is a limit of the method rather than a statement about the period.
Nine years, twenty-one rows
Twenty-one appearances across nine years is not a touring schedule, it is what survives of one. The register opens with a single BIGSOUND slot in 2014 and closes with the farewell shows in 2023, and between those two points 2018 and 2019 carry more than half the rows on their own. That shape is partly the band's and partly the sources': a festival billing and a chart placing outlast the tour they belonged to, while a run of club dates announced on a calendar that has since been taken down leaves almost nothing to record. The thin years are thin in the evidence, which is not the same as empty.
Questions about the live register
Curious about the band, the records, or how this archive decides what to record? Start here.
Is this a complete list of WAAX shows?
No. It records 21 appearances that can be sourced from a festival schedule, a promoter or venue calendar, a tour announcement or a dated review. It is a register of what is verifiable, not a complete gig log.
Which festivals have WAAX played?
BIGSOUND in 2014 and 2017, Splendour in the Grass and all three Good Things dates in 2018, SXSW and Forecastle in 2019, and Yours & Owls in 2026.
Has WAAX toured outside Australia?
Once, in 2019: a North American run around SXSW and Forecastle with dates including Permanent Records Roadhouse in Los Angeles and Soda Bar in San Diego. It is the only overseas touring in the register.
Why do some rows carry a date and others only a year?
Because that is the precision the source supports. A tour announcement proves a tour without naming each night; a gig review names a day. Neither is filled in beyond what it says.
