Australia’s most provocative masked collective will step into one of the nation’s most prestigious rooms next year, with TISM announcing a one-night-only performance of their landmark album Machiavelli And The Four Seasons at the Sydney Opera House on Friday 10 April, 2026.
The Opera House has hosted a conveyor belt of global greats since opening in 1973, but the arrival of TISM promises a night unlike anything previously witnessed inside Bennelong Point’s walls. Anonymous, absurdist, fiercely independent and eternally subversive, TISM’s very existence has challenged the norms of Australian music for almost four decades. To see the band’s anarchic performance art collide with one of Australia’s most revered stages feels equal parts improbable and inevitable.
Emerging in the late 1980s among Melbourne’s alternative underground, TISM, short for This Is Serious Mum, quickly developed a mythology as fascinating as their sound. Their constant anonymity, the balaclavas, the elaborate stage antics and the lyrical disdain for pretension made them cult figures long before the mainstream caught up. Through dance, rock, pop, industrial and electronic detours, the band always landed with pointed satire and an unshakeable refusal to play the traditional industry game.
Released in 1995, Machiavelli And The Four Seasons marked the moment TISM shifted from outsider heroes to unlikely chart players. The album spent 72 weeks on the Australian chart and peaked at number 8, bolstered by tracks that have since become part of local music folklore, including (He’ll Never Be An) Ol’ Man River and Greg! The Stop Sign!!. It also earned the band the ARIA Award for Best Independent Release. In the era dominated by grunge, the record instead leaned into electronic rhythms and sardonic pop undertones, setting TISM apart when guitar distortion was king.
The story behind the record is as unpredictable as the group itself. Starting sessions in 1992, TISM scrapped the direction after sharing a Big Day Out stage with Soundgarden and recoiled from the grunge boom. The band returned instead with electronic-driven experimentation, creating an album that both mocked and embraced pop culture while simultaneously reinventing themselves.
In the years since, Machiavelli And The Four Seasons has remained a reference point for irreverent Australian creativity, resurfacing in box sets, reissues and scholarly appreciation. A 30th-anniversary book was even published in 2025, evidence of the album’s continued cultural grip and the ongoing fascination with TISM’s legacy.
TISM’s modern chapter has been equally dramatic. After re-emerging with secret shows and then a triumphant Good Things Festival slot in 2022, the band roared back to major venues in 2024 for their Death To Art tour. The album of the same name became their highest-charting release since Machiavelli, proving that three decades on, the hunger for TISM’s uncompromising satire remains as loud as ever.
Sydney Opera House audiences can expect the band to deliver Machiavelli And The Four Seasons in full, with the knowledge that this unique performance will never be repeated elsewhere. Considering TISM’s longstanding reputation for theatre, social disruption, spoken-word tirades and genre-hopping chaos, this date already feels like a historical footnote waiting to be written.
TISM Presents – Machiavelli And The Four Seasons Live At The Sydney Opera House
Friday 10 April, 2026
Artist pre-sale tickets on sale: Tuesday 11 November at 10am AEDT
Early bird pre-sale tickets on sale: Wednesday 12 November at 10am AEDT
Tickets on sale: Thursday 13 November at 10am AEDT
Tickets from davidroywilliams.com
Machiavelli And The Four Seasons – Track Listing
(He’ll Never Be An) Ol’ Man River
All Homeboys Are Dickheads
Garbage
Lose Your Delusion II
!UOY Sevol Natas
What Nationality Is Les Murray?
Greg! The Stop Sign!!
Play Mistral For Me
How Do I Love Thee?
Jung Talent Time
Aussiemandias
Give Up For Australia (includes hidden track Phillip Glass’s Arse)
Russia (2023 CD reissue bonus track)
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