With 1 Australian, 10 European, and 3 USA raves in the books, and one more rave planned for the AUS Fall ‘26 run, how many more of these can we realistically expect?
Alien Metal is out, much later than the band initially envisioned. We know from some of the interviews around its release that the band has not one but two albums “three quarters finished”. One of these, presumably, is bluegrass(ish) and features Billy Strings. The tea leaves seem to point to Alien Metal being a relatively brief album cycle.
Crowd size at the recent USA raves seem to point to less demand for the raves as a full-show format: FH Sat Rave was notably less full than FH Fri Rock. K Bridge (announced late and on Sunday, too) was I dunno, maybe 6-7k attendance?
A short album cycle, combined with the financial considerations relative to the full-set raves, the table sets becoming a staple at the “standard” shows, and realistically a bunch of Billy Strings-centric shows coming next year… is there any room left for rave shows?
Of course, they’re notorious for just throwing caution to the wind and playing the style of shows that keep themselves happy. So maybe there is hope. Perhaps we get some multi-night runs with a rave night mixed in. But its hard to see how they fit into 2026. And given how fast the band moves through their phases… yeah… maybe we’ve seen the last rave show for a while after the next one in Australia?
I suppose that’s just a really long winded way of saying boy I hope the electronic Head On/Pill wasn’t a one-off!
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It’s interesting how polarized the show reviews for N3 at Forest Hills are. Not sure how that kind of reaction will affect all this.
I was open to the “experimental” approach of that show, but I could see some people around me tuning out or getting antsy.
Yeah I was surprised how many convos I overhead waiting at doors (which is probably a long-time-fan heavy environment) and in the merch lines, etc, where folks were negative about AM. Or more commonly “I don’t get it” or “I’m just not familiar with the genre at all”. Given the reaction to Nathan becoming a part of the show, probably not too surprising.
Like you, I’m into the musical adventure this band takes us on, even if its outside my comfort zone and takes some work to wrap my head around.
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Ha! I was next to a guy N3 and he was kinda skeptical before the show, but by like song 3 he was going hard and when there was a pause at one point he said “Well, I guess I’ve gotta go the the K Bridge show now, right??”
After I did a couple of the Euro rave shows I left wondering if I actually like them more than rock shows! So hard for me to make a call, but to answer your question I hope they continue to pepper them in and given how clearly amped at least Stu & Joey are on the table stuff I don’t think they’ll go away completely for a while.
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I still need to listen to N4 to see how it compares. But I kinda wonder if the first couple of N3 songs were a little too slow/noodly to get people engaged easily. There were a few points where I wasn’t sure what song we were on. 
I find myself wondering the same about the Orchestral shows. Will those ever return? It’s fun that they have 3 weapons they can throw into Residencies now though. Orchestra show, Acoustic Show, Rave Show?
They seem to always do right by their back catalogue (except Vegemite), so I think they’ll be continuing all the various show types over the years. Orchestra is the biggest asterisk though as the planning for that seems silly, so I dunno if we get that until a cycle for the next Orchestral infused album if that ever happens?
Eager to see how they choose to do it one way or the other.
Also, I’m in the camp of someone that doesn’t normally listen to EDM, but that Night 4 live stream under the bridge was bonkers. Enough that I find myself putting AM on more often after watching it.
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Yeah, the orchestral shows were a whole different level of pre-planning and organization. It seems like those are less likely than the rave/Nathan shows shows to happen again.
IIRC one of the (p)doom emails said something like “other cities asked us about orchestra shows but this is what we’re doing right now so get in while you can.” Kind of a signal that they had no plans for more in the future IMO.
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To me, 6-7k on a Sunday night is pretty decent showing. Plus factor in after a 3 night run, that was announced maybe 5-6 weeks before the show, when all of us who traveled long distances (ie purchased flights, and booked lodging) and scheduled our time off, Sunday night was not even possible.
Also was shocked people didn’t like N3, but I love techno.
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At the Melbourne orchestra show last year they said it was their last one.
It’s a great question about the rave shows, don’t think they’ll move onto the next thing quickly considering the investment into all the gear. I imagine Alien metal will take a little bit to grow on some people similar to the table itself.
Ngl took me way too long to realise that the ‘Aus fall run’ were referencing the shows in October being it’ll be our spring
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