Yungblud’s “Fleabag” Turns Brisbane Into a Single Roaring Voice on January 17, 2026
Brisbane didn’t get a polite rock show on January 17, 2026 — it got a full-blown, open-air takeover. By late afternoon, Riverstage was already humming with that familiar pre-gig electricity: fans in patched-up black, glittered eyeliner, boots that have seen a hundred floors, and the kind of homemade signs that only appear when people feel like the artist on the poster actually sees them back. This was the IDOLS World Tour rolling into town, and the mood wasn’t just “Saturday night out.” It felt more like a gathering — a loud one — where strangers arrive separately and leave like they’ve all been part of the same story.
Riverstage is the kind of venue that rewards emotion. You’re outside, you’re close to the elements, and you’re close enough to the crowd that the energy can’t hide. That matters for a YUNGBLUD show, because his whole thing isn’t clean perfection — it’s connection. Brisbane showed up ready to meet him halfway, and you could feel it in the way people held their spots, watched the stage like it might blink first, and sang bits of choruses before the band even touched an instrument. The anticipation had a particular edge: people weren’t waiting to be impressed. They were waiting to be let in.
Before he even appeared, the night already carried a jolt of momentum thanks to Dune Rats on support. Their job wasn’t to politely “warm up” the room — they helped kick the doors open. Riverstage responded the way Brisbane crowds tend to when a home-grown energy meets a hungry audience: fast, loud, and without hesitation. It set up a perfect contrast for what would follow, because YUNGBLUD’s best shows aren’t only about volume. They’re about mood swings on purpose — chaos, tenderness, defiance, comedy, grief — sometimes in the span of a single song. With the air already buzzing, the stage was primed for that kind of emotional whiplash.
When YUNGBLUD finally hit, the opening choice was a statement: “Hello Heaven, Hello.” It’s the sort of song that doesn’t just start a set — it announces the tone, like a flare fired into the night sky. The performance leaned into drama without feeling rehearsed, the way a great frontperson can make a big moment feel like it’s happening for the first time. Riverstage immediately became a choir, and it wasn’t the casual sing-along of a crowd recognizing a hook. It sounded like people trying to out-sing their own week, their own year, their own doubts.
From there, “The Funeral” pushed the show into motion with that rush that feels like sprinting downhill: thrilling, slightly dangerous, and impossible to slow down once it’s started. One of the most striking things about YUNGBLUD live is how he balances rawness with control. He’ll throw himself into a line like it’s a confession, then snap back into precision for the next section like he’s steering the whole storm. Brisbane fed off that intensity. You could sense the crowd’s rhythm tighten — phones up, voices up, bodies moving in waves — and suddenly the venue wasn’t a collection of individuals anymore. It was one pulsing mass.
The early stretch — including “Idols Pt. I” and “Lovesick Lullaby” — played like a tour of his newer emotional universe, the part of the catalog that’s built to feel cinematic in the open air. He didn’t just perform the songs; he performed the space between them, talking to the crowd in that candid, slightly chaotic way that makes his shows feel like a conversation with thousands of people at once. That’s where the “fun” of a YUNGBLUD night really lives: the sense that anything could happen next, including a sudden sincere speech, a joke, a moment of silence, or an unexpected detour into someone in the crowd’s world.
“My Only Angel” added another layer — not just musically, but narratively. In the middle of a set loaded with momentum, it landed like a spotlight on a different emotion: gratitude, vulnerability, a kind of bruised hope. This is the part of a YUNGBLUD show where you notice how quickly the temperature of a crowd can change when the artist isn’t afraid of softness. Riverstage didn’t lose energy — it transformed it. People held each other. People stared at the stage like they were listening for something personal. In a loud scene, he carved out a pocket of intimacy, and Brisbane treated it with respect.
And then came the moment everyone in the crowd seemed to be waiting for in their own way: “Fleabag.” Live, it carries a bite that feels both playful and sharp — the kind of song that lets a crowd yell something messy and honest without apology. Brisbane turned it into a release valve. You could hear the chorus coming from everywhere at once, and the whole performance had that slightly dangerous edge that makes a live rendition feel bigger than the studio version. Even without theatrics, the track naturally creates a shared adrenaline: fans don’t just sing it — they throw it back at the stage like it belongs to them, too.
“Lowlife” kept the set’s engine running, but it also highlighted one of the most underrated skills YUNGBLUD has as a frontperson: pacing. He understands when to hit hard and when to let a moment breathe. Riverstage felt like it was being guided rather than simply entertained — pulled forward by fast tracks, then steadied by sections where the crowd could reset, chant, and re-center. That rhythm matters outdoors, because the atmosphere can drift if you don’t command it. On this night, it never drifted. If anything, it tightened, like the whole venue was being drawn toward the stage by gravity.
Then the show pivoted into something heavier in meaning with “Changes.” It wasn’t presented as a novelty cover — it arrived like a tribute, and Brisbane responded accordingly. The track’s emotional weight created a different kind of silence between words, the kind that doesn’t feel empty but full — like everyone is listening with their whole chest. One of the most talked-about details from this Brisbane night is how the weather turned during that moment, with rain arriving as the song unfolded, giving the performance a strangely cinematic feel that you couldn’t script even if you tried. It played like nature accidentally joining the setlist.
“Fire” reignited the night immediately after, the way a great live show snaps back from tenderness into forward motion. That contrast is part of what makes the whole event feel special in retrospect: it wasn’t one mood stretched over ninety minutes. It was a journey, and the crowd stayed locked in through every shift. By this point, Riverstage looked like it had become its own little city — people singing, shouting, waving, filming, laughing, crying — a mix of catharsis and celebration. When a show reaches that point, you stop thinking in terms of “songs played.” You start thinking in terms of moments survived together.
“Monday Murder” and “I Love You, Will You Marry Me” carried that theatrical intensity that suits YUNGBLUD so well live — big feelings, big hooks, and a sense that the performance is being lived rather than delivered. “I Love You, Will You Marry Me,” especially, has that rare live quality where the crowd doesn’t just participate; they complete it. It’s one of those tracks where a thousand voices can make a lyric hit harder, because it stops being a line from a performer and becomes something the audience is saying to itself. Brisbane leaned into that fully, like they knew the assignment.
By the time “Loner” hit, it felt like a mission statement. In a venue full of people who came to feel less alone for a night, the song’s message landed with extra force. YUNGBLUD’s relationship with his fans has always been built on that idea — that the show is a safe place to be loud about whatever you’ve been forced to swallow quietly. In Brisbane, that theme didn’t feel like branding. It felt lived. You could see it in the way strangers looked out for each other, the way the crowd reacted when someone needed space, and the way the entire room seemed to agree that this was bigger than a normal gig.
The encore run — “Ghosts” into “Zombie” — is designed to leave you wrecked in the best way, and Brisbane took it like a final wave crashing over the front rows. “Ghosts” brought that soaring, communal ache that makes people put hands on hearts without thinking, while “Zombie” hit like a closing statement: emotional, defiant, strangely uplifting, and absolutely built for a crowd that’s willing to scream-sing every line. When the last notes faded, it didn’t feel like the night ended cleanly. It felt like the venue had to slowly remember how to be normal again.
What made this Brisbane show special wasn’t one trick or one viral bit — it was the way the whole night behaved like a living thing. The setlist balanced new-era drama with fan-favorite eruption, the support slot added local teeth, and the venue amplified everything with that outdoor immediacy. Add the weather-timed emotion during “Changes,” and you get the kind of concert memory that turns into a story people retell with the same sentence every time: you should’ve been there. Brisbane didn’t just watch YUNGBLUD on January 17, 2026 — it helped write the feeling of the night.
