TRAIN RETURN TO MELBOURNE AFTER 8 YEARS

LIVE REVIEW | TRAIN w/ Jason Wade and KT Tunstall | JOHN CAIN ARENA, MELBOURNE by Kayleigh Nickson

American pop rock band, Train, finally graced Australia with their presence after 8 years. We were lucky to catch them and their support acts – Jason Wade and KT Tunstall –  perform at John Cain Arena in Melbourne on Thursday 22^nd May. 

Jason Wade is an American musician best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist from Lifehouse and he was joined by fellow band member Steve Stout. Their set was simple yet effective, two acoustic guitars, a few jokes and great songs. They performed one of his solo songs ‘All Of My Life‘ and the rest of the set was Lifehouse songs including ‘You and Me‘ and ‘Hanging By A Moment‘ – which were the only two songs that I actually knew. Jason tried to get the crowd participating by asking them whether they preferred Coles or Woolies, a usual discussion that we seem to have over here. He also tried to buy a Tommy Hilfiger jacket from a man in the front row but he was unsuccessful with that. 

KT Tunstall is a Scottish musician that I grew up listening to, she was joined by Andy Burrows – best known as the drummer from Razorlight – on the drums. I was over the moon to hear her perform songs from her 2005 hit album Eye To The Telescope including ‘Suddenly I See‘. KT mixed a some songs together which made her set more interesting and kept us on our toes, ‘Black Horse and a Cherry Tree‘ was mixed with ‘Torn‘ by Natalie Imbruglia and ‘Other Side of The World‘ was mixed with ‘America‘ by Razorlight – which makes sense because you can’t not play a Razorlight song if you have Andy Burrows with you. 

The person in control of the music in between KT Tunstall and Train‘s sets must’ve been having fun as they kept teasing the crowd with songs such as ‘Sweet Caroline‘ by Neil Diamond and ‘In The Air Tonight‘ by Phil Collins and changing to the next song just before the part that everyone was waiting for. It was amusing to see 11,000 people get caught out and boo multiple times. 

Before Train came onto the stage, everything went dark and all you could hear was train noises and I don’t know why it came as a surprise to me because it makes sense. They came onto the stage performing ‘AM Gold‘ before hitting me with the nostalgic feelings with ‘50 Ways To Say Goodbye‘ – which is my all-time favourite song by them – hearing it felt like home, I was very happy in that moment.  

During ‘If It’s Love‘, people from the crowd threw their phones to lead singer Pat Monahan for him to take photos/videos before throwing it back to them. This must be a regular occurrence at their shows because it happened a few times during this song and nothing was said about it, it was as if everyone knew what they needed to do in that moment. 

Before ‘Meet Virginia‘, Pat Monahan admitted that he knew it wasn’t as big of a song in Australia than it is in America but he wanted us to pretend as if it was. After the song, which they mixed with ‘Joker‘, he proceeded to throw a lot of t-shirts into the crowd and honestly, I was impressed by how far he managed to throw some of them, they almost made it across to the other side of the arena. 

 KT Tunstall joined on stage for a cover of ‘Somebody That I Used to Know‘ by Gotye and they followed it up with ‘Bruises‘, a song that Train has with Ashley Monroe. During ‘Marry Me‘, people throughout the crowd would shout ‘yes please‘ or ‘I will‘ anytime Pat sang the words ‘marry me‘ which, if you don’t know the song, happens quite often. I enjoyed that they didn’t only play their newer songs, they played a lot of their older stuff too, they must know the nostalgic hold that their songs have on their fans. Their setlist included songs from the albums; Drops of Jupiter (2001), Save Me, San Francisco (2010), California 37 (2012) as well as some newer stuff.  

Train mixed things up a bit with some of their biggest hits as they mixed ‘Hey, Soul Sister‘ with ‘Come and Get Your Love‘ by Redbone and ‘Drive By‘ with ‘Hey Jude‘ by The Beatles. It worked well but sometimes you just want to hear the original song the way you’ve always known it. Pat Monahan told the crowd “I do really prefer Melbourne over Sydney and I’m sorry because I’m going to say the same shit to them“. At least he was honest about it. They also didn’t want to waste everyone’s time by going off stage and then back on for the encore and said “we are too old for that shit“. Their encore was a cover of ‘Hotel California‘ by the Eagles and finally finishing with ‘Drops of Jupiter‘. I had goosebumps from the sound of everyone singing along, it has to be one of my favourite things about the bigger shows. 

Overall, another bucket list band has been ticked off my list and if you missed them on this tour, they let the Melbourne crowd know that they have booked another Australian tour for 2027, it’s good to know that you won’t have to wait another 8 years to see them again.