Anime fans, clear your calendar: Ongaku Music Festival is bringing a stacked bill of Japanese rock to Australia this October.
Presented by Bird’s Robe, SMASH and Animaga, Ongaku Music Festival is billed as a celebration of Japanese music, anime and pop culture. The name fits, with ongaku the Japanese word for music. FLOW headline both dates, joined by Does and Closure in Moscow. Bird’s Robe, the promoter and label steering the event, has backed progressive and experimental music in Australia since 2008.
Ongaku Music Festival
- 24 October – The Forum, Melbourne
- 25 October – Metro Theatre, Sydney
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
FLOW formed in 1998 and made their name on anime soundtracks, handing GO!!! and Re:member to Naruto and Sign to Naruto Shippuden. The five-piece are built around twin vocalists, and their theme work reaches beyond that to Code Geass. Sign alone has passed 160 million streams on Spotify, part of a body of work nearing a billion streams worldwide. The band have carried the catalogue across 30 countries, and earlier in 2026 played their first show on the African continent. Their Australian sets will lean on those same anthems.
Sharing the bill is Does, the Japanese trio whose songs have featured across Naruto Shippuden and Gintama. Rounding things out is Closure in Moscow, the Melbourne progressive rock outfit formed in 2006, who sit on the Bird’s Robe roster. Their inclusion hands the bill a local anchor among the visiting Japanese acts, and their set pulls from Jaeger Bomb, A.T. Field and other material shaped by Attack on Titan.
The two-city run takes over The Forum in Melbourne on 24 October before landing at Sydney’s Metro Theatre on 25 October, a pair of storied rooms central to each city’s live music scene. Earlybird tickets are on sale now, with general public allocations opening from 31 July. Tickets and VIP packages can be found through birdsrobe.com and Ticketek Australia, the festival’s two official outlets.
For more information, head here.
