Hilltop HoodsHilltop Hoods are no strangers to playing big shows. Over the years they’ve headlined some of Australia’s largest festivals, not to mention the success they’ve garnered around the world throughout their illustrious near three-decade career.
However, it’s the opportunity to perform in front of audiences in their home city of Adelaide/Kaurna that fuels the fire in their bellies like nothing else. Pair these two aspects together and it’s incredibly fitting they have just been announced to perform in the bp Adelaide Grand Final in 2026.
The event itself acts as the final leg of the Repco Supercars series that travels to multiple destinations across Australia, with the Adelaide race having held its honorary status since the year the first Hilltop Hoods album A Matter Of Time was released.
The significance of this adds another layer to what is already set to be an energetic spectacle. At the event in 2025, over 100,000 patrons came through the gates for the day’s proceedings on Saturday, the day that the Hilltop Hoods are set to play this year.
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They will be sharing the stage throughout the event with Ball Park Music, Cyril, and Teenage Joans, with the music set to round out Saturday, November 28th at the Grand Final.
What’s made this event even more special for the Hoods is the recent unavailing of a lane being named in their honour in Adelaide City. It simply echoes the relevance of being able to play a hometown show.
“It's a bit surreal,” outlines Pressure. “But it's a huge honour. It's in a great part of the city as well. It's right in the heart of Adelaide's nightlife strip, or one of the areas like that. It's truly a crazy honour.”
Whilst Suffa added a layer of perspective for what it means to have the lane named after them.
“They have The Angels in there, Paul Kelly as well as Sia,” Suffa acknowledges. “So, we've got some amazing company, in those already established laneways. That makes it a lot less intimidating, but it still feels like a great honour.
“We feel even more a part of our city, and then performing at the Adelaide Grand Final race, which is such an iconic race, in November really just connects us with our own city even further.”
Their announcement as headliners at the Adelaide Grand Final comes nearly a year after their latest LP release Fall From The Light, their sixth-consecutive album to number one on the ARIA charts.
Most of their albums have hit platinum or multi-platinum status over their tenure, but this album felt particularly important, emerging six years after their prior release and the first to be shared since the post-COVID era.
“It's a weird thing to come back to music after being away from it for that long,” expresses Suffa. “I mean, COVID obviously was responsible for a lot of that break. But you're never assured that when you come back into something it will all still be there for you.
“The music world went so quiet at one point, as did things for us in regards to touring and playing live. The whole experience of writing, recording, and ultimately performing the new album felt like starting fresh at one point for me.
“So, to come back to it after all that time and have such an amazing fan base that supported the record, came to shows and got behind us was phenomenal because you should never take it for granted, as you don’t know how long it's going to last.”
This gratitude is the resounding articulation for the Hoods, for whom nostalgia isn’t especially apparent but when big shows come around, the environment provide an opportunity recognise the journey thus far.
A perspective that was also achieved through the experience of riding out COVID and its affect as a musician.
“We'd just released The Great Expanse in 2019 and did just under 100 shows around the world after it,” Pressure recalls. “I was pretty burnt out at that stage and desperately needed a break. COVID acted as a great refresher.
“I got to have long service leave that you don't get if you work for yourself. I got to reinvigorate my passion and drive for doing it again for sure.”
Whereas for Suffa, the experience pronounced another side of what COVID was responsible for.
“It was a bit of a hole at that time. When you look back on that time, mentally I just see a hole and there's just so much momentum lost. Momentum lost for other acts that might have just dropped an album and then the world gets shut down and then the tour gets cancelled and then on and on.
“We got a bit lucky though, because the album dropped and we weren’t sitting in that hole with new music. COVID became a bit of a bookmark for that time, as that's over, we are moving forward, this is a new start.”
And now the Hoods as much as the other artists on the line-up are pleased to be out of that strange time and able to play to larger audiences again. A moment that doesn’t in so much directly incite reflection but more so allows for the opportunity to echo the sentiment of their gratitude.
“Being in front of a crowd of 20,000 people, it's a mixture of daunting and appreciation,” notes Pressure. “It gives us a short moment to see how far we've come and where we have got to. We don't take it for granted. It won't be here forever, but hopefully it will, because I'm not good at anything else.”
And despite it all the Hilltop Hoods don’t seem to be losing any of the magic they have injected into their music since the outset. If anything, it seems the contrary, with the more life they live, the more their creativity and craft has to offer.
The group will perform on Saturday, November 28th at the bp Adelaide Grand Final, a spectacle worth being in the audience for.
Tickets to the bp Adelaide Grand Final after race concert are on sale now.
