Windwaker, The Pretty Wild, RinRin, Dregg @ The Gov, Adelaide 1/11/2026
Now this is the ticket! There is no doubt that punters are looking to make their gig dollars stretch even further and how could you go past Windwaker, The Pretty Wild, RinRin and Dregg all on the bill. Four quite distinct bands all doing great things and together making for one hell of a formidable line-up. That said 2026 is the year of Windwaker who are fresh off the release of their third album smile, you’re on camera. Windwaker are an incredible band who deserve to be mentioned with those other metalcore bands in the top echelon of the genre. They continue to carve and forge a new path to evolve their sound pushing the envelope of the genre.
Melbourne outfit Dregg came out firing wasting no time making their presence felt. There was no standing idly by either being a passive observer as they whipped up the mayhem right from the outset. With a nu-metal leaning to their metalcore sound the focus was very much on new album The Art Of Everything. These guys are rising in confidence and a band to keep an eye out on as they demolished their way through the likes of LV Vest, PCP Wednesdays, Butterscotch Biscuits and the set defining Dog C**** with the chaos ending on Feeling Fine.
Perth’s rising superstar in the making RinRin was up next and it was great to finally see her play her own unique brand mixing the flavours of pop-punk, metal-core, hyper-pop and nu-metal taking the best bits of Babymetal, Poppy, Linkin Park and Bring Me The Horizon. Small in stature big in sound! There is something about RinRin that commands attention and the way that one song seamlessly flows in to the next. Even though she is still in the early stages of her career she has built quite the war chest of songs to draw upon including set highlights Gunmetal Black, Corn Dogs and Built Diff featuring Windwaker’s Liam Guinane on vocals. Whether you danced, moshed or happy to hang further back there was plenty to be impressed even the quotable quote from RinRin “the energy in here is immaculate”. Set finishers FOB and Fever Dream were impressive also.
It was the first time to Adelaide for The Pretty Wild hailing from Las Vegas and despite some technical issues that cut their set short by a couple of songs they played a lively and spirited set. Sisters Jyl and Jules Wilde working in tandem pushes the metalcore genre even further carving out their own niche and the way they are able to switch it from harsh to clean vocals works for them. Making the most of what time they had left it was easy to see that the crowd favs were Button Eyes and Omens. The fire and fury of Sleepwalker made for the perfect set closer. Very much looking forward to a return visit sometime soon.
Hot damn! Seriously how good were Windwaker? One word, incredible! They clearly have elevated their game with a big arena sized production with all the lights and other trimmings squeezed in to the confines of The Gov. Another one of those shows we’ll be talking about for a while to come as they are right on the cusp of something brilliant. Running like a well oiled machine they made a rampaging start with Low followed by some Windwaker classics Superstitious Fantasy and Tabula Rosa. They might have been one down with keyboardist Connor Robins not on tour at the moment but you’d hardly know with the sum of parts pulling together to get it down.
Front man Liam Guinane is like that jack in a box once unleashed amping up show ten fold. RinRin returned to duet on click before sending the crowd in to hyperdrive on Sirens. Songs don’t get bigger than Venom and the energy in The Gov really was “immaculate”. The stripped back version of Lucy for those “day one fans. In a charge to the finish it was loser and dna, complete with crowd surfers, topping off what can only be described as a triumphant return to Adelaide (and no equipment failure either!). As the band left the stage the chant for one more started and Guinane returned saying “how about I do two for one”. The band could have finished right there but to hit this one out of the park, they did that victory lap and closer. Mind blown!
Live Review By Rob Lyon