Kaiser Chiefs
w/ The Delta Riggs
RAC Arena
Sunday, November 23 2025
It was either very good planning or a fortuitous confluence of events that brought the first Kaiser Chiefs concert in Australia in thirteen years on the very same weekend the Ashes were being played across the river at Optus. The extreme speed-run of that game seemed so accidentally perfect as to deliberately allow the Barmy Army a rest day between the end of the cricket and these five likely lads from Leeds.
Opening for Kaiser Chiefs both this evening and the entire Australian tour were triple j indie-rock darlings The Delta Riggs. Their first time back in the West in three years, the band proudly wore each of their many influences on both hearts and sleeves, and the performance was a rollicking throwback to the Nineties, specifically when that decade itself masqueraded as the Seventies.
Lead vocalist Elliott Hammond strutted and crowed across the stage like an extremely confident rooster, and during Supersonic Casualties interpolated Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha like it was the most obvious thing in the world. The turn-of-the-millennium Brit-rock at the start of the set gave way to a more funk-infused ending with Slinging on a Saturday Night and Never Seen This Before.
With inspirations fully on display, yet an evolved style most definitely their very own, it was a delight to sample the tasting platter The Delta Riggs shared with Perth, and they will most certainly gain many new fans across the country with the exposure this tour will give.
Two decades since the multi-platinum smash debut Employment, played across millions of bedrooms both at the time and ever since, Kaiser Chiefs came back to Australia near the end of a celebratory year for the band, having travelled across four continents, including a Saturday afternoon slot at Glastonbury’s Pyramid.
The boys came out on stage and gave a polite bow to the audience before even a note was played. Vocalist Ricky Wilson then went around the band, saying hello to each, before asking who the new guitarist was. ‘Ben from Perth’ was the cheery answer, and Wilson advised the crowd that there was a competition on the socials that Ben had won. So, Four Yorkshiremen and an Australian—a potential 2025 twist on a classic.
Andrew “Whitey” White had unfortunately fallen ill shortly before the flight from Blighty—Benjamin Witt of local outfit The Chemist had been tapped, learned an entire setlist in less than a day, and after only one full rehearsal with the rest of the band, joined them in front of the punters tonight. The explanation was dry and very logical and decidedly less fun than the multiple internet rabbit holes explored in search of mysterious guitar competitions. With the additional information, Witt was an absolute revelation stage right—as the wags would surely say around this company, he never missed a beat.
As anniversary tours tend to go, Employment was performed in original song order, front to back, with Wilson even advising the audience when to turn over to Side B. Starting with the ferocious energy of Everyday I Love You Less and Less, followed up with I Predict A Riot, Modern Way, and Na Na Na Na Naa—perhaps one of the strongest album-opening quartets of that decade—Kaiser Chiefs careened into RAC Arena at full pace and volume, none of their intensity diminished since 2005.
The band played hard, fast, and tight, with Wilson’s voice as strong as when the group began. All the band’s primal howls, iconic within the songs themselves, were also relayed with both a venomous intent and an oddly positive charm. Wilson also showcased a physicality when he jumped across the stage that would put most teenagers to shame.
Wherever the band went, the audience followed. With bucket hats, beers, terrace chants, England flags, and Leeds United shirts galore, the general standing looked more like Headingley or Elland Road than the WACA. The audience surged in waves back and forth across the floor and roared the lyrics back to the stage. When the line “never been this far away from home” came around during Oh My God, the mind quickly calculated the distance, both in kilometres and culturally, between here and there.
Over all of this, akin to an orchestral conductor, Wilson displayed a cheerful yet knowing joie de vivre. He knew exactly where the line was between entertainment and cynicism and exactly where to leave off before crossing that boundary. Beyond the songs, yet still endlessly enjoyable to watch and listen to, Wilson thanked those who had been to Kaiser Chiefs before and those for whom this was a first time in exactly the same way.
As Employment successfully wound up, the band left the stage for several minutes. The encore included a selection from the rest of their career, including Ruby and Never Miss A Beat, both of which had the standing section rocking again. The lyric, “It’s cool to know nothing,” released seventeen years ago now, could very well have been written for precisely this moment. Reasons To Stay Alive, a deeper cut from their most recent offering, Easy Eighth Album, demonstrated that Kaiser Chiefs’ songwriting abilities and ear for a rhythm were as strong as ever, before the night ended on The Angry Mob, as only 2025 could.
A wonderful return to what now seems a magical past, which was still an actual mess to live through, this twentieth anniversary tour of Employment ticked all the boxes required—the songs still held their power, with the years turned back for both the band and the audience.
Legacy bands often begin to slow down this far into a career, but Kaiser Chiefs, on the basis of this fun, confident, and swaggering performance, had not been given that note, nor even subscribed to that entire conversation. Less the expected comfortable nostalgia play and more a return to the crowd’s mosh pits of their youth, this concert was an absolute blast.