Live at Spark Arena
25 September 2026
Live Review by Music Journalist: Paul Marshall
The Melbourne rock ’n’ roll survivors prove that some songs simply refuse to die.
There was something wonderfully appropriate about walking into Spark Arena and finding the place packed with sparkies, builders, tradies and the wider tribe of New Zealand rock fans. This was never going to be a room full of people worried about whether their shoes matched their shirt. This was a rock show and Auckland had turned up ready for some noise.
By the time The Living End hit the Spark Arena stage, there was noticeably more breathing room on the floor.
Devilskin had just done their job, and done it spectacularly, leaving behind a crowd that had spent the afternoon drinking, shouting, moshing and generally behaving like people who had been told there was no work tomorrow.
The Living End walked into a slightly different atmosphere.
The room had thinned.
Perhaps some of the punters had simply become too intoxicated to continue.
Perhaps others had decided that after Devilskin's wall of hard-rock muscle, they needed something a little heavier.
Or perhaps The Living End simply weren't rock enough for some of them.
Whatever the reason, Chris Cheney, Scott Owen and drummer Andy Strachan weren't about to apologise for being the band they are.
And what they are is something rather special.
The Living End have spent more than three decades smashing together punk, rockabilly, blues, rock ’n’ roll and enormous pop hooks into something that has always sounded unmistakably like The Living End. Formed in Melbourne in 1994, Cheney and Owen began playing together under the name Runaway Boys before eventually becoming one of Australia's most successful rock exports.
Their self-titled 1998 debut turned them into international stars, powered by songs such as “Prisoner of Society,” “Second Solution” and “All Torn Down.”
And, remarkably, more than 25 years later, those songs still sound bloody good.
Cheney looked out at the audience and delivered the sort of line that tells you immediately he's been doing this long enough to understand the room.
“You look festive. You look like you've been here all day.”
Well, Chris, you weren't wrong.
This was the end of an eight-hour rock pilgrimage, and judging by some of the people still standing, festive was probably the diplomatic word.
Then The Living End got down to business.
“All Torn Down” was one of the highlights.
The song came across remarkably close to the recorded version, but with another ten pounds of thrust bolted onto it.
That is the difference between hearing a great rock song through speakers and having a good live band stand in front of you and physically push it across the room.
The guitars had more bite.
The drums had more punch.
And Scott Owen's double bass, that gloriously oversized weapon that has been such a defining part of The Living End's sound, gave the whole thing an extra shove.
Interestingly, “All Torn Down” remains one of the band's most frequently played songs in their live history, sitting fifth among their most-performed tracks, behind staples including “Prisoner of Society,” “Second Solution,” “Roll On” and “West End Riot.”
And hearing it live, you understand why.
This is a song that has aged rather bloody well.
The band have also clearly been revisiting that classic material during their current I Only Trust Rock n Roll touring cycle. Recent 2026 setlists have featured “Second Solution,” “Roll On,” “Pictures in the Mirror,” “Misery,” “How Do We Know,” “Roller,” “All Torn Down,” “West End Riot,” “White Noise,” “Prisoner of Society” and the title track from the current tour.
But if there was one image from the set that summed up The Living End's attitude, it came courtesy of Cheney and a bottle of beer.
At one point, the singer took the bottle and proceeded to run it up and down the neck of his guitar.
Beer everywhere.
Across the guitar.
Down the neck.
As he lashed the instrument with the bottle, the whole thing looked less like a carefully rehearsed rock-star moment and more like somebody had decided that the guitar could probably handle another beer.
It was messy.
It was entertaining.
In other words, it was rock ’n’ roll.
And that has always been The Living End's secret weapon.
They don't need pyrotechnics or an enormous production to make a song feel dangerous.
They just need the three of them, some instruments and a room willing to come along for the ride.
That philosophy has survived remarkably well.
In a 2026 interview with Rolling Stone Australia, Chris Cheney described the band at their core as a “straight-up rock and roll band”, reflecting on how they have maintained that identity while continuing to tour more than three decades after forming.
There's also something impressive about watching a band that could quite easily spend the night simply replaying its greatest hits with the enthusiasm of a tribute act to itself.
The Living End don't feel like that.
There's still movement.
Still aggression.
Still a sense that the songs are being played now, rather than simply reproduced because that's what the audience paid to hear.
And perhaps that's why the people who remained in the room were still moving.
The crowd might have been smaller than it was for Devilskin, but The Living End didn't look remotely interested in measuring their success by headcount.
They just played.
Hard.
Fast.
Loud.
And with enough swagger to remind everyone why they became one of Australia's great live rock bands in the first place.
There is something particularly satisfying about seeing a band that has been around since the mid-'90s still treating the stage like somewhere they need to earn their place.
The Living End have already earned it.
They just keep proving it.
Reviewer: Paul Marshall
Photography by Paul Marshall
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