DEAR SEATTLE ARE TAKING THE LONG WAY AROUND AUSTRALIA
AND THEY'RE BRINGING SEAHAVEN WITH THEM
Dear Seattle kick off their regional Australian tour this Friday, bringing California's Seahaven along for their first ever Australian shows. And rather than sticking to the obvious capital-city circuit, they're taking the long way around.
There is a version of an Australian tour we've all become pretty familiar with.
Sydney. Melbourne. Brisbane.
Maybe Adelaide.
Maybe Perth.
Then everyone goes home.
Dear Seattle are doing something a little different.
This Friday, August 28, the Sydney punk rockers begin a run that takes them through Bunbury, Scarborough, Adelaide, Belgrave, Geelong, Tomakin, Wollongong, the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Newcastle and finally Canberra.
And they're bringing Seahaven with them.
For the Californian alternative band, remarkably, it'll be their first time playing in Australia.
DEAR SEATTLE ARE COMING HOME
It feels like a good moment for Dear Seattle to do a tour like this.
Their third album, TOY, arrived last year and pushed the band into new territory, debuting at number four on the ARIA Albums Chart and giving them their first ever Australian Top 10 album.
But charts have never really explained what makes Dear Seattle work.
They're a live band.
The kind built around the moment where a room full of strangers suddenly realise they all know exactly the same words.
There's grit to it, but there's warmth too.
Dear Seattle have always existed somewhere between wanting to put your arm around your mate and wanting to throw yourself directly into them.
TOY didn't remove that.
It just made the world around it bigger.
Now they're bringing that record back into smaller rooms.
And that feels appropriate.
THEN THERE'S SEAHAVEN
For a particular corner of alternative music, this is a big one.
Seahaven have somehow spent close to two decades existing without ever making it to Australia.
That changes this week.
Formed in Torrance, California, the band's catalogue has moved through post-hardcore, emo, alternative rock and increasingly atmospheric territory without ever sitting particularly comfortably inside one label.
Winter Forever arrived with teeth.
Then Reverie Lagoon: Music For Escapism Only stretched everything outward.
Halo of Hurt came years later sounding darker, stranger and more patient.
And in 2026, Seahaven returned again with their self-titled record.
There's something fitting about their first Australian visit happening this way.
Not parachuting into one enormous festival.
Not three giant rooms and gone.
Bunbury.
Scarborough.
Belgrave.
Geelong.
Tomakin.
Wollongong.
Places where the separation between the band and the audience becomes considerably harder to maintain.
REGIONAL SHOWS MATTER
It's easy to talk about supporting the Australian music scene while still treating anything outside a capital city as optional.
Regional touring is harder.
The drives are longer.
The rooms can be smaller.
The economics become less predictable.
But those rooms matter.
For someone in Bunbury, a band actually coming to Bunbury means something very different from being told there's a show two hours up the road in Perth.
And that's perhaps what makes this tour worth paying attention to.
Dear Seattle could comfortably concentrate on the major cities.
Instead, the tour begins at the Prince of Wales in Bunbury before heading to the Indian Ocean Hotel in Scarborough the following night.
Then it keeps moving.
Across South Australia.
Victoria.
New South Wales.
Queensland.
The ACT.
Eleven stops before it's done.
That's not a detour.
That's the tour.
TWO BANDS THAT MAKE SENSE TOGETHER
Dear Seattle and Seahaven don't necessarily make the same music.
That's precisely why the pairing works.
Dear Seattle bring immediacy.
Big choruses. Movement. Release.
Seahaven can sit somewhere more uncomfortable.
Their music has space to breathe, collapse and rebuild itself.
But underneath both bands is essentially the same thing.
Honesty without needing to make a spectacle of being honest.
Music about being a person and discovering that being a person is frequently quite difficult.
One band might make you throw a beer in the air.
The other might make you stare at the floor for four minutes.
Both have their place.
IT STARTS IN WA
Before the rest of Australia gets them, Western Australia gets the opening weekend.
Dear Seattle and Seahaven hit the Prince of Wales in Bunbury this Friday, August 28, joined by Late 90s and Scumlings.
Twenty-four hours later they head north to the Indian Ocean Hotel in Scarborough on Saturday, August 29, with Late 90s and The Points.
Then they're gone.
Adelaide gets Sunday.
And the long way around Australia begins.
There are easier ways to tour this country.
This one sounds considerably more fun.
DEAR SEATTLE — REGIONAL AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2026
with special guests SEAHAVEN (USA)
August 28 — Prince of Wales, Bunbury WA
August 29 — Indian Ocean Hotel, Scarborough WA
August 30 — Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide SA
September 3 — Sooki Lounge, Belgrave VIC
September 4 — Barwon Club, Geelong VIC
September 5 — Smokey Dan's, Tomakin NSW
September 6 — UniBar, Wollongong NSW
September 10 — Mo's Desert Club, Gold Coast QLD
September 11 — The Station, Sunshine Coast QLD
September 12 — King Street, Newcastle NSW
September 13 — UC Hub, Canberra ACT
FOR THE SCENE / NOT FOR PROFIT.