You Am I celebrate 30 years with their Strung Up tour at Sydney Opera House. Georgia Cassimatis reviews a night of rock, nostalgia and musical magic.
It was 30 years ago when I first saw You Am I, at the inaugural, iconic, Big Day Out, in 1992, when the hormones were rampant, and Australian indie music was the mouthpiece for a generation like mine; finding its way through the travails of life.
Bands like Silverchair, Regurgitator, The Cruel Sea, Powderfinger, TISM and You Am I, were the face of Gen X. In an era when our parents didn’t know what we were up to, these bands made us ‘feel seen’.
You Am I were the first Australian band to have released three successive albums that have each debuted at the number-one position on the ARIA Albums Chart: Hi Fi Way (1995), Hourly Daily (1996) and #4 Record (1998), they have received in total 10 Aria awards, and in 2025 they were indicted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame; Rogers calling himself the ‘Multi Aria Award Winning D List celeb’.
And here we all were again, 30 years later, ‘feeling seen’; this time not in a mosh pit, but at the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House, for You Am I’s 30th anniversary Strung Up tour.
Intrigue was the word, as I was curious to see how a rock ‘n’ roll band was going to translate to a conservative Concert Hall with people sitting in seats, and with the Electrical Eel four string quartet an addition to the band; the bass guitar (Andy Kent), lead guitar (Davey Lyons), acoustic guitar, vocals (Tom Rogers), Drums (Rusty Hopkinson) and Keyboard (James Fleming).
Surprisingly this fusion was truly mesmerising and to Rogers, endearing: he says he ‘loves the ‘clash of beautiful, sonorous instrumentation with a primal beat’. While Roger’s own voice cracks throughout, it was more about a voice that had travelled the long road, rather than thinking it was time he give the vocals a rest.
Watching this artistic fusion was so many things: special, magnificent, a celebration of art, of life, and of a band that was meant to play forever: they were never that band that would break up and get back together 20 years later, Rogers joked.
Having supported international artists such as The Who, The Rolling Stones and Oasis, he also subtly reminded us throughout from where they came: from the time they played in the toilets in Camden, to playing to nobody in a bar in Milwaukee, while also mimicking ‘the American music exec’ who hoped they were Australia’s answer to Oasis, except that Rogers reminded him he didn’t look like Oasis.
When the exec also said: ‘Tim do you think a 6.5 minute song about the mother of a skinhead is a great idea?’ Roger’s response was: ‘Look at me. Do you think I have a grasp on reality?’ The song, Soud As Ever, became a hit.
An artist whose lyrics are about processing the world as an everyday Australian male, he uses his art to express what he finds hard to. Concerned about people doing it tough in the current world climate, he admitted he didn’t see his friends because ‘he is bad company, so he writes songs to them instead’. For this show while serenading us with obvious hits, he interspersed the show with lesser known songs; from Berlin Chair, Purple Sneakers, Damage, The Piano and of course Heavy Heart.
His parting words in the finale to audience were that the You Am I, ‘will pay you back one day, we promise’.
That, they already did.
For more information on tour dates check out: www.youami.com.au
Reviewed by: Georgia Cassimatis