Live Review: Inhaler @ The Tivoli, Brisbane

At the end of each dying day, the sun capitulates itself to the shadows, and memories find their way onto the darkened horizon of obscurity.

A few minutes feel like a lifetime. A few hours, an eternity. The night obfuscates time, and we haunt the long-abandoned grounds of The Tivoli. Only moments ago, this was a cathedral of rock n’ roll, thousands of voices screaming in unison from the abyss at five guys from Dublin. Now, we’re ghosts floating on the side of the road, replaying an amalgamation of videos and voice notes, murmuring guitar riffs like a sacred litany as if it might summon them back. 

Recording timestamps induce a cold flash of pain: it’s now past midnight. This wasn’t moments ago, but hours ago. As I said, the night obfuscates time. Let me show you what I mean. 

Brothers Johnny and Matty Took, smiles wide and infectious, stroll onto the stage at eight o’clock. Their album 200K is the latest brainchild of their project BIIG TIME, and it’s flooded with anthemic, addictive sounds reminiscent of the 80s soundscape. Johnny leans into the mic. “This is a new band for us, and we just released an album about a month ago!” The DMA’S guitarist laughs as everyone cheers when he plays the opening chords of their lead single, Bigger Than Nothing.

In Chugging Pills, Matty – frontman of PLANET – utilises the sonic expanse and harmonises with his brother in both the verses and the chorus. It’s exhilarating. A soaring melody that doubles down on the visage of nostalgia, while integrating an entirely new character that is inherently youthful.

The juxtaposition is so enthralling it’s almost unnerving, as if listening to this song fabricates an entirely new version of you, except it’s not a new you, just a real you. And you’re sixteen again, watching the sunset in the backseat of some backwater car, and you can’t remember how you got there, but you know there’s a likely chance you’ll never feel that free again. Maybe that’s projecting, or maybe you should just listen to the song. 

When most bands announce they’re going on a “World Tour,” the world collectively agrees that’s a euphemism for “USA and Europe Tour and We’re Really Sorry About Everywhere Else.” Inhaler, to the unbridled delight of many nations, challenge this stereotype in earnest.

The world tour of their third studio album, Open Wide, travels again to Australia off the back of their first sold-out tour here last August. Less than a year later, they’ve reappeared with a new catalogue, a new flavour (collaborating with Kid Harpoon will do that to you), and a whole new collection of fans (I’m talking venue upgrades and date additions). 

Gone are the days when the lads start their set with iconic walkout songs like Henry Mancini’s Lujon or A$AP Rocky’s LPFJ2. Now, they’re sauntering out to an extended intro of their titular song, Open Wide, and the sound is so intrinsically them, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the instrumental released on vinyl with their first album, It Won’t Always Be Like This.

The track was simply called Dublin. Back then, it was like a knife in the gut, the way the industrial sound carved itself raw into the bloodstream. Now with this new intro, the knife twists in a way I haven’t felt since I first heard that B-side. Open Wide is a new archipelago of Inhaler music, but as they take their places on a stage plush with indigo lights, I still feel the pull of familiar waters. Their home is written into them. Dublin is not a city that forgets you.

And so, it’s all rather fitting when they launch straight into Dublin In Ecstasy, a long-time fan favourite (officially released in 2023, unofficially known from live shows and loved ardently since 2019). The opening chords are galvanising. The lights turn green, white, and orange, and I’m staring into the heart of Ireland. And then I’m staring into the eyes of Elijah Hewson because he’s found himself off the stage and right in front of me. He leans over the barrier, and we move to make room for him as he settles on the edge. 

“Is there anything you want to say?” He holds his mic toward the girl next to me. 

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Can you do an Irish jig?” 

His face is priceless, and I laugh. Hard. And harder still when he actually does it…or tries to. Then he’s singing the rest of the lyrics to someone, and they’re screaming them back at him into the mic. 

“That’s it!” Hewson yells, leaping back onto the stage. He moves to where drummer Ryan McMahon plays on an elevated kit, and together they build a final chorus that has even the security guards jamming along. 

“This next one is for One Direction,” says Hewson, and the gritty riff of Little Things almost blasts the roof right off the Tivoli. Albeit wildly different to 1D’s song, Inhaler’s closing number of their newest album is ultimately a triumph of the human spirit.  

It reminds me of a line from Fernando Pessoa: “There’s a thin sheet of glass between me and life. However clearly I see and understand life, I can’t touch it.” And this is precisely what we’ve seen Open Wide is all about – the shattering of this sheet of glass. Not merely touching life but grappling it in all its facets, clutching at it with broken and bloodied fingers and not letting go.   

As the final chords from Louis Lambert on keys close out Totally, bassist Robert Keating tries his hand at some lingo. 

“Are you guys all keen? That’s Aussie slang, right? Keen? You guys all keen for Ryan McMahon on the drums tonight?” Everyone’s laughing incredulously and cheering, many only now realising that ‘keen’ apparently isn’t used as frequently in other countries.  

If you’re keeping up with recent mashup trends, here’s one I’m betting was not on your 2025 bingo card. Forget Let It Grow from The Lorax mixed with Shawn Mendes’s Wonder, I raise you: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) and X-Ray.

Hewson strums the iconic chords of the ABBA anthem, and the room goes wild, wondering where he could possibly lead us from here until a gritty switch to Western rock tells us everything we need to know. The lyrics are all too apt: “Your time is a thief I’ll chase.” The night is getting later, inexorably pulling the set to a close. 

Waiting for the encore is a special kind of agony, physically and metaphorically. We’re all utterly spent, nearly on our knees from exhaustion. Who cares? Guitarist Josh Jenkinson has yet to perform his glorious It Won’t Always Be Like This solo, and no one is moving so much as an inch toward the doors until he’s graced us with it.

It’s moments like these that become not only a core part of Inhaler’s set, but also the heart of their music. No matter your favourite song, everyone, and I do mean everyone, goes crazy for the Jenkinson solo. It’s one of the main aspects of their music that unites friends, family, and strangers. Mainly strangers. 

The night obfuscates time. A few minutes feel like a lifetime. A few hours, an eternity. And in these few hours that perhaps were only a few moments after all, Inhaler gave us this. That small sliver of eternity to last us until the next tour, until the next eternity.