Pearl Jam with Pixies
Engie Stadium, November 21 and 23
If Kurt Cobain were alive you could only imagine how conflicted he’d feel about these shows: the grunge-era contemporaries he bristled against teaming up with the influential alt-rock band that inspired the loud-quiet-loud dynamics of Smells Like Teen Spirit. Regardless of how the late Nirvana frontman may have felt, Eddie Vedder and co. have escaped the ’90s with their dignity intact, and this pairing of formidable live acts is a surefire win for those about to rock.

HTRK
Phoenix Central Park, November 25-28
If you put Everything but the Girl, Beach House and an assortment of vintage synthesisers and drum machines into a blender, you’d wind up with something sounding like HTRK (“Haterock”), the Victorian duo of vocalist Jonnine Standish and musician Nigel Yang. It’s music for late nights and staring longingly into the middle distance, and Phoenix Central Park is generously offering up four free shows (tickets are allotted based on an online ballot system).

TISM
Hordern Pavilion, November 29
If you grew up listening to Triple J in the ’90s, here’s a line-up you’ll happily reel in your wallet chain and lay down your hard-earned money for. Melbourne’s masked pranksters TISM are back at it with their first album and headline Sydney show in 20 years, bringing along with them Eskimo Joe, the Mavis’s, Ben Lee and Machine Gun Fellatio (Sydney’s non-masked pranksters, who play their first show in 19 years).

Tones and I
Sydney Opera House Forecourt, November 30
You’ve got to hand it to Tones and I: 2019 single Dance Monkey was a hit so gargantuan – over 3 billion streams, number one in 38-plus countries – that a relegation to one-hit wonder status seemed a lock. The singer-songwriter born Toni Watson has defied expectations with the 2024 album Beautifully Ordinary, which discards the gimmicky elements of her 2021 debut Welcome to the Madhouse to offer something more mature and well-rounded. Catch the new Tones tunes – and, yes, Dance Monkey – at this outdoor gig.

Sarah Blasko
Factory Theatre, November 16 and 17
Twenty years on from her debut album, The Overture & the Underscore, Sydney singer-songwriter Sarah Blasko is back with a sixth album that has the imposing title I Just Need to Conquer This Mountain. Her voice is as tender as ever, but the subject matter has gotten a little darker: grief, goodbyes and grappling with a religious upbringing. Blasko, as fine a live performer as they come, will bring her new material to life at these album-launch shows.

Also touring this month are a swathe of local artists new and old: Barkaa, John Butler, the Whitlams, Horrorshow, Thirsty Merc, Alex the Astronaut, Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, Kasey Chambers, the Amity Affliction, the Saints and Hoodoo Gurus playing Stoneage Romeo in full. International visitors include Take That, the Fall soundalikes Yard Act, Britney Spears 2.0, Tate McRae, Bombay Bicycle Club, Hozier, Ben Ottewell and Ian Ball of Gomez, Dropkick Murphys, A. Savage from Parquet Courts, Michael Franti & Spearhead, James Blunt, the Original Wailers, Twenty One Pilots, Tems, Bob Mould, the Cult and Glass Animals. Who will you be seeing? Let us know in the comments.