The Darts (US)
+ The Spivs
+ Jollee
Vinnies Dive Bar
Southport, Queensland, Australia
Wednesday, September 9, 2026
Words: ANGELA EVOL
Photos: MARK CHANDLER
Wednesday nights are not traditionally the stuff of rock ’n’ roll legend, particularly at a venue that doesn’t usually put bands on midweek. Someone forgot to tell the Gold Coast.
The opening night of The Darts’ first Australian tour sold out Vinnies Dive Bar and filled the room with a crowd ready to make a night of it. By the time the headliners appeared, there was no standing around waiting to be convinced. Vinnies was hot, packed and ready for trouble.
There had already been plenty of trouble before anyone played a note, although nobody in the audience would have known it.
Nicolle Laurenne and bassist Lindsay Scarey.
During soundcheck, after 21 years of faithful service, Nicole Laurenne’s 1968 Farfisa Fast 3 suddenly stopped working. The suspected culprit was an electrical converter that wasn’t doing its job and may have fried the organ’s power supply.
An urgent Facebook call went out for anyone near the Gold Coast who could help, and the local music community answered. Within an hour, three vintage keyboards had been offered:: a Korg, a Moog and, incredibly, another Farfisa.
The Farfisa came from Anthony, a friend of support band The Spivs. It was a different model from Laurenne’s own organ, but it saved the show. Turning up at short notice with a vintage Farfisa when an international band’s Australian tour debut is hanging in the balance? Anthony has now achieved legendary status.
Kudos also goes to everyone else who offered equipment or assistance. It was a great example of the local music community rallying around a band in trouble and making sure the show went on.
The Spivs came through with a US-to-Australia step-down converter, while further converter issues involving the guitars and amps were sorted quickly during soundcheck. Then, during The Darts’ set, Laurenne’s US reverb pedal stopped working and the soundman had to reconfigure the replacement Farfisa on the fly.
Nobody in the crowd would have had any idea. The Darts handled it all so smoothly that the night appeared to be running exactly to plan. There may have been chaos behind the scenes, but once the lights went down they were completely in control.
Ghosts in the machine, perhaps, but The Darts never allowed them to haunt the show.
Jollee opening the gig.
Gold Coast four-piece Jollee opened the night, led by frontwoman Brooke Mowett. They brought a heavier, more contemporary rock sound to the bill, mixing big melodies with thick guitar riffs and plenty of theatrical flair.
Mowett is not a singer who disappears into the scenery. She gives the band a strong focal point, while the guitar, bass and drums provide the muscle behind her. Jollee were a good local choice to start the night, bringing some rock-pop accessibility without losing the harder edge.
Next came The Spivs, who had the advantage of playing in front of their home crowd and the responsibility of warming up a room waiting to see an international band for the first time.
They handled it with swagger.
Caveman and his Spivs.
Opening with “What U Really Like”, The Spivs hit the stage as a tightly wound garage-rock unit. The guitars were rough-edged and direct, the rhythm section kept everything moving, and the band wasted little time turning the support slot into their own show.
Frontman Caveman, aka Wayne Kemp, is made for a room like Vinnies. There is very little separation between the stage and the audience, and he used every inch of it, leaning towards the front row, prowling the stage and delivering the songs with a mixture of loose-limbed theatre and genuine attack.
“Voodoo Doll” and “Lover Man” kept the pressure on before “She’s Lost Control” added a darker pulse. “Tonight”, “Go Getter” and “Hurt Me” followed, with the band becoming more animated as the set rolled on.
The Spivs did not approach the night like a band simply filling a support slot. They played hard, held the crowd and looked completely at home beneath The Darts’ backdrop.
They closed with “You’re Gonna Miss Me”, the 13th Floor Elevators garage-psych classic, and by the time they left the stage, the room was well and truly ready.
Then The Darts arrived.
When I interviewed singer and Farfisa-wrangler Nicole Laurenne before the tour, she warned that anyone standing at the back with their arms folded was in danger of being found and dragged into the action. It sounded like a good line at the time. At Vinnies, it became more of a warning.
The band opened with “Apocalypse” and immediately showed us what we were in for: fuzzed-out guitar, a hard-driving rhythm section, Farfisa cutting through the middle and Laurenne commanding the front of the stage.
Guitarist Rebecca Davidson.
There was no cautious easing into their first Australian performance. The Darts arrived at full voltage. Unless you knew what had happened during soundcheck, you would never have guessed that replacement equipment, faulty converters and technical problems had threatened the night.
They were that good.
The line-up of Laurenne, guitarist Rebecca Davidson, bassist Lindsay Scarey and drummer Heather Thomas, played with the confidence of a band accustomed to walking into an unfamiliar room and winning it over. Each member had a distinct presence, but they worked as one tight, powerful unit.
Davidson’s guitar supplied the bite, Scarey’s bass gave the songs their prowling low-end movement, and Thomas hit with enough force to keep the whole thing charging forward.
“Zombies On The Metro” arrived early and supplied one of the first great visual moments of the night. Laurenne disappeared beneath the Farfisa and played it upside down from the floor, because apparently playing a borrowed vintage keyboard in the conventional position would have been far too sensible.
It could be dismissed as a stunt if she wasn’t still completely in control of both the instrument and the song. That mix of real musicianship and complete absurdity is a big part of what makes The Darts so much fun live. There is plenty of theatre, but the band can seriously play.
Heather Thomas on drums.
“Vampires In Love” shifted the mood, with its bass-led middle section showing there is more to The Darts than fuzz, speed and horror imagery. “No Love” and “Get Spooky” kept the hooks coming, while “Up In My Soul” and “Late Drive” carried the momentum through the middle of the set.
Laurenne rarely stayed still. When she wasn’t attacking the Farfisa, she was at the front of the stage, crouching towards the audience, making eye contact and treating the room as an extension of the band.
None of it felt forced. The small stage and packed floor suited The Darts perfectly. They can obviously handle much larger venues, but there is something about this music that belongs in a room where the sweat, noise and people all collide.
“The Devil Made Me Do It” was one of the night’s standouts, built around the sort of groove that makes standing still almost impossible. “Punk Rock Girl” and “Hanging By A Thread” followed, with “Nope” delivering another infectious blast before the darker late-set turn of “Darkness”.
By this point, the crowd had gone well beyond simply watching the show.
“Midnight Creep” was where it all broke loose. Caveman returned to the stage wearing a Frankenstein mask and joined The Darts for the dance. He was the only outsider on stage, but the crowd quickly learnt the moves and joined in from the floor.
It was funny, sweaty and just the right amount of chaotic. The whole room became part of the performance, while the band kept the song charging along underneath it all.
The night finally ended with “My Heart Is A Graveyard”, an appropriate song after a show that had spent the evening dancing with electrical death. After the equipment failures, frantic phone calls, replacement keyboards and technical fixes, The Darts had not merely survived their Australian debut. They had turned it into a triumph.
A sold-out Vinnies on a Wednesday night was an impressive start, but it turned out to be no fluke. All three of The Darts’ headline sideshows drew packed rooms, from Vinnies to the Federal Hotel in Bellingen and then the Barwon Club Hotel in Geelong.
Add two support slots with The Damned in Brisbane and Melbourne, and their long-awaited first Australian visit was a success from start to finish.
Australian audiences understood The Darts from the moment they arrived. More importantly, The Darts seemed to understand us.
Nicole Laurenne had said the band was made to play Australia.
Five shows and three packed headline rooms later, she was right.
