Colin Hay celebrated his 73rd birthday with a deeply personal solo performance at Melbourne Recital Centre, delivering two hours of songs and stories that felt less like a concert and more like an intimate gathering with old friends.
by Paul Cashmere
For two hours at Melbourne Recital Centre on Monday night, Colin Hay transformed one of Melbourne’s premier performance spaces into what felt like his own lounge room, inviting 1000 people into an evening of music, humour and reflection that became one of the most memorable shows of the year.
The occasion carried added significance. Monday’s performance coincided with Hay’s 73rd birthday and the audience marked the milestone by opening the evening with a rendition of Happy Birthday. What followed was not a career retrospective in the conventional sense, nor was it a greatest hits package.
Hay himself acknowledged that idea during the show, joking that Men At Work only really had “five” hits anyway.
Instead, the evening unfolded as a sequence of stories and songs drawn from different chapters of his life and career. The pacing was leisurely and conversational. Thirty minutes into the performance, Hay was only introducing his fourth song. Nobody seemed in a hurry.
The format suited him perfectly. Alone on stage with only a guitar and microphone, Hay proved that his greatest gift may be his ability to connect with an audience through storytelling as much as songwriting.
His anecdotes ranged from the absurd to the deeply personal. He recounted his years of drug use and joked that when he stopped taking drugs, the hits stopped too. There was a story about presenting an album to fellow musician and friend Ringo Starr and asking if he would like a copy, only for Starr to politely decline.
Another story reached back to the earliest days of Men At Work. Hay recalled a drunk audience member in Sydney requesting “the knocking at my door song”, not knowing the title of “Who Can It Be Now?”. That story ended with the drunk guy calling Colin a C***.
The stories often served as introductions to songs. “Looking For Jack” gained new context when Hay explained that the song’s title referred to actor Jack Nicholson, whom he had met at a performance in Los Angeles.
Some of the night’s most affecting moments centred on family. Hay spoke warmly of his late parents and remembered travelling on a Melbourne tram with his father when a fellow passenger appeared to recognise him. His father, in typically direct fashion, announced loudly that she knew he was “the Men At Work guy”.
He also reflected on mortality and family with characteristic humour and tenderness. If given the choice between spending eternity with God or with his parents, Hay said he would choose his parents, before quickly adding that perhaps he would simply visit them every second weekend.
The emotional range of the evening extended further when Hay read a poem about “the second child I never had”. Hay has never had children, but in the poem he imagined a fictional second child who grows up and discovers Jesus, leaving the fictitious father to confess that he preferred him as a child. The piece was surreal, funny and unexpectedly moving start to the night.
Musically, the set drew from every era of Hay’s career. Men At Work classics including “Who Can It Be Now?”, “It’s a Mistake”, “Overkill” and “Down Under” sat comfortably alongside solo favourites such as “Beautiful World”, “Waiting for My Real Life to Begin” and “I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You”. There was also room for a beautifully styled version of The Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset”.
The finale provided perhaps the most touching moment of all. Hay welcomed his sister Carol to the stage, introducing her as the first person he ever sang with. Together they closed the evening with “Melbourne Song”, performing a song about his hometown in his hometown.
It was a fitting conclusion to a night that felt uniquely personal. There were songs, certainly, but there was also the sense of spending an evening in the company of a gifted storyteller sharing memories accumulated over more than seven decades.
The next time Melbourne audiences see Hay will be in a very different setting. He returns later this year as part of the Men At Work line-up on the Red Hot Summer Tour, swapping the intimacy of the Recital Centre for large outdoor stages around the country.
Colin Hay Setlist, Melbourne, 29 June 2026
Come Tumblin’ Down (from Fierce Mercy, 2017)
Who Can It Be Now? (from Men at Work, Business As Usual, 1981)
Waterloo Sunset (The Kinks cover)
There’s Water Over You (from American Sunshine, 2009)
Beautiful World (from Going Somewhere, 2001)
Looking for Jack (from Looking For Jack, 1987)
Maggie (from Going Somewhere, 2001)
It’s a Mistake (from Men at Work, Cargo, 1983)
Goodnight Romeo (from Gathering Mercury, 2011)
I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You (from Transcendental Highway, 1998)
Here in My Hometown (from Are You Lookin’ At Me, 2007)
Are You Lookin’ at Me? (from Are You Lookin’ At Me, 2007)
Starfish and Unicorns (from Now and the Evermore, 2022)
Frozen Fields of Snow (from Fierce Mercy, 2017)
Waiting for My Real Life to Begin (from Topanga, 1994)
Next Year People (from Next Year People, 2015)
Overkill (from Men at Work, Cargo, 1983)
Down Under (from Men at Work, Business As Usual, 1981)
Melbourne Song (with Carol Hay) (from Peaks & Valleys, 1992)
RED HOT SUMMER TOUR 2026
17 October 2026, Toowoomba, Queens Park
18 October 2026, Sandstone Point, Sandstone Point Hotel
24 October 2026, Berry, Berry Showground
25 October 2026, Manly, Keirle Park
31 October 2026, Hunter Valley, Roche Estate
1 November 2026, Coolangatta, Coolangatta Beach
7 November 2026, Ballarat, Victoria Park
8 November 2026, Mornington, Mornington Racecourse (Sold Out)
14 November 2026, Swan Valley, Sandalford Wines
15 November 2026, Glenelg, Glenelg Beach
Tickets available at www.redhotsummertour.com.au. Tickets remain on sale for all shows except Mornington.
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