Yours Truly, Senses, Besties @ Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide 24/6/2025
When Yours Truly last hit Adelaide in March last year, the temperature were hitting the forties, the venue was packed, and the band produced a radiant performance.
Tonight, mid winter, the band are back with a firebrand of an album in Toxic and temps are struggling to hit double digits. How would they fare?
To answer that, if you pardon the lame pun, truly we must start with the first sparks of fire tonight in Besties who jump out with an intro that is their homage to Limp Bizkit’s Rollin’ before smoothly transitioning into Racecar.
With a backdrop that states ‘Besties are horseshit’ and the band name Senses logo underneath, it’s clear they are self deprecating, humorous and just enjoy rocking. Musically they are catchy pop punk and get everyone involved in a fun way with a chorus that cries ‘fuck this, fuck you’ before even getting Mikaila Delgado up for Love Bombs.
Americans Senses – those of the aforementioned backdrop – are evidently loving being down under. Separate from learning the deep subtleties of our language, they are also learning we love pop punk anthems with a side of sassy attitude with saltiness too.
Vocalist Madison Taylor is eager to match the beat from the rhythm section, and while those boots she wears may have quite large soles, it becomes clear throughout the show that’s not for height, it’s more for becoming the exclamation point of a lyric, a down beat and a riff.
Playing Dead rocks to cymbals crashing and Better Than This ends a set that had Taylor connecting with everyone on the front row intimately, while those behind clap in unison with the bands fun choreographed dance moves. It’s getting hotter.
By the time our headliners arrive, the room is warm, not forty degrees warm but warm enough that this is pleasant evening. Yours Truly though have poured their lives into Toxic and a pleasant evening isn’t enough.
The opening tape starts to the the beat to Love Feels Like which allows drummer Henry Beard to get locked as the OG’s Delgado and Teddie Winder-Haron arrive, and we launch into Back 2U.
Delgado, always a fashion icon, is resplendent in what starts as a queen of Jumanji and finishes in deity of rock, and is flanked by long time collaborator Teddie, who while dressed more casually in a no less enthusiastic in performance.
A set list that combines the incendiary tracks from Toxic with older numbers like Hallucinate and the stomping High Hopes with drummer Beard dropping the beats has the temp notching up a little more.
A slow break for All That I’m Not, a standout on the album, gives the opportunity to show Delgado’s vocal power away from pop punk. The heart wrenching ballad unfolds on stage, developing into a mesmeric performance that poor fuels on the cold night, lights a match and watches it burn. From that moment, the temperature reaches last years heights.
Sinking roars on stage and when Teddie gets into the middle of the crowd for Walk Over My Grave, the crowd whirls into a circle pit that doesn’t stop for the rest of the evening.
It becomes clear Yours Truly have curated a live set list to tease and bring you to boil at the right time.
Funeral Home has the Sydneysiders realising how parochial South Australian’s are when challenged with crowd participation to the point Delgado sheepishly yet devilishly cajoles the chorus out of the crowd one more time at Sydney’s expense before Call My Name closes out the evening.
Tonight, while cold outside, Yours Truly brought the forty degrees temps back to Adelaide with this show.
Live Review By Iain McCallum