For many of us, we have certain bands that we look toward to be the soundtrack of certain moments in our lives. There’s a band that powers your gym playlist, a track to dance to with friends before a night out, an artist whose songs you share with someone you love. Spacey Jane is one of those bands that never fails to deliver the type of song you want to drive around with your windows down, screaming along to. Their latest tour, in support of their third record, If That Makes Sense, brings that same anthemic energy into packed venues across the US, with the hunger of a band that still has something to prove despite finding success a long way from home.
Spacey Jane is an indie rock band from Perth, Australia, formed in 2016 when lead vocalist Caleb Harper, lead guitarist Ashton Hardman-Le Cornu, and drummer Kieran Lama were at university. Three years later, bassist and backup vocalist Peppa Lane joined. In 2020, the Aussie band gained national and international attention for their hit single “Booster Seat,” which landed them second place on Triple J’s Hottest 100 and first place in ARIA Song of the Year in the following year. Since then, they have become Australia’s crown jewel of indie-rock and are now kicking off a US tour. On just the second night of that tour, they brought plenty of energy to a well-sold Brooklyn Bowl Nashville.
They opened with “Through My Teeth,” a track off the newest record that balances energy and space to set the tone of the show. The next few songs also came from the new record before the band began dipping into older material, but the crowd showed the same enthusiasm as the first notes of each song rang out. Those in the audience were not fair-weather fans; they sang, maybe more appropriately screamed, along to each word of every song spanning the band’s entire discography. The band played their biggest single from the new record, and arguably one of the best songs they’ve released to date, “Whateverrrr” surprisingly early in the set. Ashton Hardman-Le Cornu, who spent much of the set jumping, twirling, and flipping his long hair around, lurched at the crowd, feeding off the energy of the song. The band’s years of chemistry were evident as they ran around, smiling, and putting their heads on each other’s shoulders, seeming more like a family than a band.
Bassist Peppa holds a special place in the crowd’s heart, and the lead singer played into that by giving her a moment in the spotlight before playing their song “Ily the Most,” redefining this undeniable love song as one to be shared among friends as well. Then came their hit. “Booster Seat” at the time had just under 115 million streams on Spotify, easily their biggest song to date. The crowd sang and swayed along to the song with the biggest grins on their faces. And after it ended, no one moved a muscle. It’s expected that a band save their “best song” for last, but Spacey Jane has the luxury of an entirely captivated audience and can meticulously craft a setlist on their own terms.
One thing that has remained a common thread between the band’s releases is their brutal lyrical honesty. The band is not afraid to admit when they are villains in their own stories or when the weight of pain becomes too heavy to hide. This honesty really comes to a head in the encore as Harper sang the self-lacerating refrain of “So Much Taller”: “You’ll never be enough, you’ll never be loved, and the fact that you tried is embarrassing enough.” It was a moment of vulnerability that somehow made the show feel even bigger. They closed the night with the high-energy track, “Lots of Nothing,” before taking their final bows, and the crowd filed out, seeming satisfied.
GALLERY: Spacey Jane at Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee (September 4, 2025)
