The Chats are letting the kids in, playing an all-ages show at The Tote on 29 November.
Smoke and alcohol free, it’s an extra night on top of the three 18+ shows The Chats already have booked in the Tote band room on 26, 27 and 28 November. Those ones are $44.40 and over-18s only, so this is the gig for anyone who’s only ever seen the Tote from the footpath.
Bands on the Coachella bill don’t usually turn around and book a Collingwood pub for teenagers in the same year. Tickets go on sale at 10am on 5 November.
The Chats
- 13 November – Crowbar, Brisbane
- 14 November – Crowbar, Brisbane
- 15 November – Singing Bird, Frankston
- 19 November – Crowbar, Sydney
- 20 November – Crowbar, Sydney
- 21 November – Crowbar, Sydney
- 26 November – The Tote, Collingwood (18+)
- 27 November – The Tote, Collingwood (18+)
- 28 November – The Tote, Collingwood (18+)
- 29 November – The Tote, Collingwood (all ages, smoke and alcohol free)
- 4 December – Altar, Hobart
- 5 December – Forth Pub, Forth
- 6 December – Royal Oak, Launceston
- 9 December – Jive, Adelaide
- 10 December – Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide
- 11 December – Indian Ocean Hotel, Scarborough
- 12 December – Rosemount Hotel, Perth
- 13 December – Rosemount Hotel, Perth
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
For the parents: The Chats are Eamon Sandwith, Josh Hardy and Matt Boggis, a Sunshine Coast trio who went viral in 2017 with Smoko, a song about a worker who wants to be left alone on their break. Be warned that the back catalogue includes a song called The Clap, and it isn’t about applause. Since Smoko they’ve supported Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age across several continents and played Coachella earlier this year.
The 29 November show makes it four Tote nights in a row for The Chats, the Melbourne leg of a 17-date run of small rooms that kicks off at Brisbane’s Crowbar on 13 November and finishes with two nights at Perth’s Rosemount Hotel. Brower and Salmon Sisters open the 26 November show. Frankston’s Singing Bird has the only other Victorian date, on 15 November. Johnston Street is familiar ground: the band last turned up there for a surprise Tote gig with Leatherman in June 2025.
Half Cut, the band’s third album and first in five years, lands on 5 March 2027. They recorded it at Maple Sound Studio in Los Angeles with Frenzal Rhomb’s Jay Whalley, and the tracklist leans hard on titles like Brown Bottle Flu and Half Arsed. Sandwith calls it a fun rock and roll record that’s a bit more open than their older material, though he’s wary of calling it mature. The songs deal with hangovers and rehab, among other things.
Opening track Off It is out now with a video directed by Matt Weston, featuring actor Sally-Anne Upton alongside the band. Among the credits: a stunt driver, and Dave Crispin as caravan wrangler.
For more information, head here.
