Travis - The Man Who In Concert

It was raining the last time Travis played Sydney, and somehow, on this night, that felt like destiny.


Rain was belting Sydney like it had a point to prove. The kind of night where you step out of the car and instantly regret not packing a snorkel. On the shuffle towards the ICC, someone near us laughed and said, “Of course it’s raining.  It rained the last time they played Sydney too.” It was the perfect accidental prologue, because a few songs later Travis would turn that simple observation into something almost mythic. Outside, the city was all reflections and flashes of lightning. Inside, it felt like a room full of people who had been waiting a very long time to sing the same words together, and experience something truly special.

Josh Pyke walked on alone and immediately set the tone. No fuss, no overproduction, just presence. His name on the backdrop, a cool blue wash across the stage, and a single white spotlight that made the theatre feel smaller than it was. Acoustic guitar, harmonica, stomp box, loop pedal, a small keyboard, and a little table for a drink. Simple, honest tools, used with taste. The ticket listed him as ‘special guest’, but it never felt like a warm-up act. It felt like a songwriter opening the door and inviting everyone to come in close.

He was relaxed, funny, and quietly brilliant at making an arena behave like a listening room. He thanked the crowd for showing up early, spoke about what a privilege it had been touring with Travis, and promised we were in for something special. He let his songs unfold without rushing them, using the stomp box and loops as subtle brushstrokes rather than a feature. There was texture and warmth, but never anything that distracted from the writing.

Between songs he talked about how he began writing punk songs, then heard Travis back in 1998 and realised you could still be an angry nineteen-year-old while writing songs with narrative and melody. He spoke about the two songs he always plays, always in the same order because that’s the order they were written, both about his sons when they were tiny. Now the boys are mid to late teens, and when he asked them if they want to come to tonight’s show in town, the answer was a firm “no”, probably because Minecraft needs them more than their dad does, he joked. The laugh it got was loud and affectionate. Everyone in the room knew that exact dynamic.

That thread of family and time carried beautifully into Middle of the Hill, which he dedicated to his daughter Alia. He told the story with warmth and pride, then let the song do what it does best. It’s one of those tracks that doesn’t announce itself loudly. It sneaks up on you. Gentle, conversational, almost casual on the surface, but lyrically it lands with surprising weight, especially if you’re a parent. It’s about watching someone grow, about the quiet distance that opens up over time, and the love that never really shifts position even as everything else does. In a big room, it felt oddly intimate, the kind of song where people don’t cheer straight away because they’re still processing what it’s stirred up.

He worked the crowd with the ease of someone who genuinely likes people. He checked how many Scottish voices were in the house and was met with a wall of noise, then drew a huge cheer by mentioning having previously played at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut and admitting he’d been mispronouncing ‘Sausage Hall’ (Sauchiehall) Street while touring with Travis. He touched on Private Education and the thrill of performing it with the Australian String Orchestra, but tonight kept it in its original stripped-back form. Then he closed with Don’t Let It Wait and turned the theatre into a choir. He warned us we’d be singing a lot later, so we might as well warm up properly. Loops stacked, harmonies bloomed, the stomp box kept it pulsing, and by the end the crowd was singing back at him in full voice. He took a bow to genuine applause, having done the best kind of support set. He didn’t just fill the space. He shaped the mood.

Travis arrived under the same cool blue light, but everything shifted the moment the backdrop flipped to The Man Who album cover. You could feel it. A collective lean forward, as if the whole room wanted to get closer by a few metres. The stage was laid out with a quiet confidence. Dougie Payne stood on the left with his mic and his bass rig anchored by that huge Ampeg 8 by 10 fridge cab. Neil Primrose was slightly back on a lovely Yamaha Club Custom kit. Fran Healy stood front and centre at his mic, with a Marshall cab sitting back in the mix of gear behind him. Andy Dunlop was to the right of Fran with his mic and those twin Orange cabs stacked behind him. Off to the right sat the Roland keyboard, angled such that Andy could drift between guitar and keys. A banjo waited tucked beside the drums, out of the way until it was needed. It looked like a working band stage, not a spectacle, and that mattered. The sound matched it. Punchy, open, beautifully balanced, harmonies that sounded like four people in a room together rather than something polished into perfection.

They began exactly where the record begins, with Writing to Reach You, and it landed like the opening page of a favourite book. Fran was hilarious and disarmingly honest, the kind of frontman who can take a big room and make it feel like a conversation. He joked that they’d played this album show plenty of times in the UK and it had felt a bit flat, so they decided to jazz it up. And what could possibly be more exciting than a PowerPoint slideshow. The screen lit up and suddenly we were being invited into a set of memories, song by song, like someone opening an old shoebox and letting the contents spill out.

The Fear arrived with the story of being chucked by a girlfriend and rehearsing above a pub, the sort of detail that makes the song feel less like a track and more like a page from a life. As You Are slowed the room down properly. Fran spoke about worrying people would think he’d nicked the lyrics, then showed proof he hadn’t by sharing a poem an older man had written for him as a kid. The words appeared on the screen and in a huge venue they still felt intimate.

“As you are now, so once was I, remember this as you pass by.  As I am now, you soon will be. Remember this and pray for me.”

He dedicated it to the men in the room and spoke about how we’re taught to hide things, to swallow what’s real, because we think that’s what men do. He mentioned losing friends to that silence. It was gentle, but it hit deep, and you could feel the room listening in that rare way where thousands of people go quiet without being told.

Then Driftwood, delivered with one of the most beautifully human stories of the night. Fran explained he’d played the song through with guitar and vocals into a digital recorder and, at the end, thought he’d pressed stop. But the recorder had actually started recording at that moment. What it captured was him leaving the room, walking down the stairs, still singing the song quietly to himself, his voice fading as the distance grew. And then he played that accidental recording for us. It wasn’t a gimmick. It was a glimpse behind the curtain, the song in its rawest form, the private voice you normally never hear.

Turn was pure atmosphere. The backdrop became a giant mirror ball and with each chorus the theatre glittered with thousands of tiny points of light, bouncing across faces and walls until the whole room felt like it had been sprinkled with stars.

Then came Why Does It Always Rain on Me? Fran told the Glastonbury story with that perfect mix of humour and awe. Their (ex!) manager had questioned who’d want a song about the weather. They were broke, struggling, thinking they might have to pack it in and go back to Glasgow. Then they played Glastonbury on a warm sunny day, squeezed in this new song, and as they did, the sky opened up and soaked the crowd. He went home and heard his name mentioned on TV. John Peel and Jo Whiley calling Travis the best band of the festival. It still blew his mind.

Then he looked out at Sydney and laughed about the timing. It’s raining again. Of course it is. And as he strummed the opening chords, the ICC stood up like it was automatic. People didn’t just sing along. They sang at the band, word for word, start to finish. When the instruments dropped away and the band let the audience carry the bridge alone, it was one of those moments that makes you aware of your own heartbeat. The kind of shared roar that feels bigger than music. The ovation afterwards was enormous, and it wasn’t just for the song. It was for everything that the song had held for people over the years.

The album continued to unfold like a film you’ve watched a hundred times but still feel in real time. Luv came with the story of the mixtape labelled “Luv” and a date, made for that girl who’d chucked him, and the punchline that there was never any reply. Not a peep. He delivered it with that mix of humour and ache that Travis do so well, guitar harmonics filling the gaps between lines like unspoken thoughts. She’s So Strange brought a grin with the tale of their early video so cheesy it was apparently wiped from YouTube, and the screen teasing us with only a small clip because it was too terrible to show in full.

Then Slide Show, which felt like Fran explaining the whole point of the night. He spoke about songs being the closest thing we have to real magic, not because of chords, but because of what they do to us. The memories they drag back into the room, the people they reintroduce, the way they can turn your own life into a series of images. As they played, the screen rolled through photos of the band through the years, a slide show inside a song called Slide Show, inside the private slide shows happening in everyone’s head.

And then, quietly, the album’s hidden track. Blue Flashing Light. Fran reminded us it doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the album. It’s not meant to. It’s a stark little story about domestic violence in a British cul-de-sac, harsh language and harsher reality, and he recalled playing it to Dougie’s mum. When it ended, in her wee Scottish voice, she simply said, “Ooo that’s nice.” The crowd laughed, partly because it was funny, partly because it was uncomfortable, and partly because that is exactly what mums do when they’re trying to support the thing you’ve made without fully taking in how dark it is. The song landed heavy, the way it should.

They left the stage to huge applause, then returned for the second act with a different energy, looser, grateful, ready to have fun with it.

Bus kicked it off, then Fran turned the audience into his metronome for Love Will Come Through, arms up, swaying left and right in time. He spotted people standing at the front and sitting behind and called it out with glorious bluntness. “This isn’t a movie cinema. This isn’t a Coldplay concert. This is a Travis concert. How about we all stand up?” The room rose as one, and Good Feeling hit like a switch being flicked. Suddenly it was dancing, clapping, smiling at strangers, the whole place alive.

Side came with bite. Fran talked about being furious at the world, about a handful of men trying to divide everyone into sides, calling it bullshit and insisting we’re all on the same side. The song sounded punchier for it, and the crowd moved like they believed him. Then Closer, the emotional pivot. He asked everyone to think of the person who loves them more than anyone else, living or not, and to bring them into the room. “Let’s double the audience,” was the idea. When the band stepped back and let the crowd sing a chorus alone, it was soft and enormous, like the theatre briefly became one voice.

Before Flowers in the Window, Fran paused and dedicated the song to the girls, on behalf of all the guys. To the mums, the nans, the daughters, wives and girlfriends. He smiled and admitted that us guys might not always tell them, but we love these special people more than they know. Then the song began and everything slowed. All four members came to the front under a single spotlight, one acoustic guitar shared between them, Neil on tambourine, and thousands of voices filling the gaps. There was even that lovely moment of organised chaos where Dougie strummed, Andy held the chords, Fran sang, and Neil drove it with the tambourine, and it worked perfectly because they were enjoying each other as much as we were enjoying them.

Then the curveball. …Baby One More Time arrived with the feel of a spontaneous left turn, which made it even better because it genuinely seemed like it wasn’t planned. It certainly wasn’t on the setlists that had been gaffa’d down in front of the band, and it carried that old Live Lounge energy, the famous Travis trick of taking a pop song everyone knows and slowing it down until the meaning shifts. Familiar words suddenly sounded bruised and vulnerable. You could feel people around you recalibrating in real time.

Fran then introduced the final song in a way that felt like a quiet mission statement. He thanked everyone for coming, for buying tickets, for keeping live music alive. Make love, not war, he said. And most importantly, sing. Then they launched into Sing, and the ICC did exactly that. Not politely. Properly. Full voice, full heart, the kind of mass chorus that makes you understand why bands keep touring long after they have nothing left to prove.

Outside, the storm had moved on. The air was dry again, clean and cool, and the crowd spilled into Darling Harbour buzzing and bright-eyed. Someone nearby said, “That felt massive, but somehow really personal.” Another voice floated past, quieter, almost reflective: “I didn’t realise how much those songs were still part of me.” And there was that line that kept doing the rounds, said with a grin and a shake of the head, that the last time Travis played Sydney, the Twin Towers were still standing. Whether it’s perfect history or just a way of saying it’s been far too long, the sentiment was right.


The Man Who is a gentle record. Grey-skied, understated, full of songs that don’t shout for attention. That shouldn’t be enough to fill a room like this, but it is, because the tenderness is the power. On 14 January 2026 at the Tik Tok Entertainment Centre Sydney, Travis delivered something truly special. A show that felt huge and intimate at the same time. A room full of strangers singing like it mattered. A night that reminded you why live music, at its very best, still has the power to stop the rain.

Thanks to Travis, Josh Pyke, Live Nation, RPM PR and the Tik Tok Entertainment Centre for having us along.

Review & Photos by Andy Kershaw for Music Kingdom Australia