La Dispute will return to Australia this October in support of their fifth studio album No One Was Driving The Car, bringing an all ages ethos that reflects the band’s origins.
by Paul Cashmere
American post hardcore band La Dispute have confirmed an October 2026 Australian headline run, touring nationally behind their 2025 album No One Was Driving The Car. The tour marks the band’s first Australian dates since the post pandemic anniversary shows for Wildlife and Rooms Of The House, and underlines their long standing relationship with local audiences.
The No One Was Driving The Car Australian Headline Tour 2026 begins at the Astor Theatre in Perth on 16 October before moving through Frankston, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Newcastle and Brisbane. Six of the seven shows are all ages or licensed all ages events, a deliberate decision that vocalist Jordan Dreyer says speaks directly to the band’s formative years in Michigan.
“All of us were underage when we first started going to local shows at home in West Michigan,” Dreyer explains. “Without venues that were accessible to us, both as attendees and performers, the entire endeavour might have died on the vine. It has always been a priority to keep our doors open to all comers where possible, so that younger people have the same opportunities afforded to us at a crucial age.”
Formed in Grand Rapids in 2004, La Dispute emerged from a DIY circuit of house shows and community run spaces. Dreyer, originally a writer of poetry and short fiction rather than a vocalist, built the band’s early lyrical identity around narrative forms and literary influences. That sensibility defined their 2008 debut album Somewhere At The Bottom Of The River Between Vega And Altair, released through No Sleep Records, which fused spoken word intensity with melodic hardcore structures.
The follow up, Wildlife in 2011, expanded their scope. Structured as a collection of interlinked stories, it examined violence, grief and moral consequence in their home city. The record became a touchstone of the so called Wave of post hardcore bands of the early 2010s, alongside peers such as Touché Amoré and Defeater, and cemented La Dispute’s reputation for complex, emotionally charged composition.
By the time Rooms Of The House arrived in 2014, the band had refined their dynamic range, embracing atmosphere and restraint. Panorama followed in 2019 via Epitaph Records, introducing a more textural palette and electronic undercurrents. After Panorama, the band faced the same creative stagnation that stalled much of the industry during the pandemic years, while also marking ten year anniversaries for Wildlife and Rooms Of The House with extensive touring.
No One Was Driving The Car, released on 5 September 2025, is the first La Dispute album entirely self produced. Recording sessions moved between Grand Rapids and Detroit, as well as the United Kingdom, Australia and the Philippines. Dreyer has said that the changing environments reinvigorated the writing process, each location offering a reset in perspective.
Conceptually, the album draws inspiration from the 2017 psychological thriller First Reformed, exploring existential dread in an age shaped by accelerating technology and environmental anxiety. The title itself was taken from a police officer’s remark in a news report about a fatal self driving car crash. For Dreyer, the phrase became a metaphor for contemporary life, suggesting a sense of velocity without clear agency.
Across the record, La Dispute intensify their sonic contrasts. Dreyer alternates between a more primal vocal attack and measured melodic phrasing, while the guitars cut with sharper edges and rhythmic tension. Lyrical imagery references intrusive screens and cameras, fractured relationships and recurring visions of mortality, continuing the band’s tradition of confronting uncomfortable subject matter with literary precision.
Australian audiences have played a consistent role in the band’s touring history. Since their first visit in the Wildlife era, La Dispute have returned multiple times, including anniversary runs and festival appearances. Their 2026 itinerary again favours theatre and mid size venues that preserve the immediacy central to their performance style.
Joining the tour are Meanjin, Brisbane four piece Special Features. Operating without a single focal point, the band rotate lead vocals and deliver a dense, noise driven live set. They have previously shared stages with Bad Dreems and DZ Deathrays, and are building towards a debut album scheduled for 2026.
For La Dispute, the forthcoming Australian dates extend a cycle that has always been about more than record promotion. Two decades after forming in a Michigan DIY scene, the band continue to frame their work around access, community and sustained artistic inquiry. In 2026, that commitment will again play out in front of Australian crowds, many of whom will be discovering the band in the same all ages spaces that once shaped their beginnings.
Tour Dates
Friday 16 October, 2026, Perth, Astor Theatre
Sunday 18 October, 2026, Frankston, Singing Bird
Monday 19 October, 2026, Melbourne, 170 Russell
Wednesday 21 October, 2026, Adelaide, The Gov
Friday 23 October, 2026, Sydney, Liberty Hall
Saturday 24 October, 2026, Newcastle, King Street
Sunday 25 October, 2026, Brisbane, The Tivoli
Ticketing
Live Nation Presale, Thursday 19 February, 9am local time to Friday 20 February, 9am local time
General Public On Sale, Friday 20 February, 10am local time
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