For nearly two decades, Angus and Julia Stone have carried Australian music to stages across Europe, Japan and the Americas — earning three billion streams and the kind of devoted global following that makes a homecoming feel genuinely earned. That return now lands at the most storied address in Sydney: the Opera House Forecourt, with the harbour behind them and Utzon’s sails overhead, opening the venue’s 2027 summer season.

They bring their seventh studio album, Karaoke Bar, to the harbourside stage — a collection shaped by wandering. Born from time on the Greek island of Hydra, stretches in Tokyo and France, the record carries the textures of those places without losing the intricate, folk-inflected songwriting that made the duo one of Australia’s most distinctive voices. The album’s name, reportedly, came from a night on Hydra just steps from Leonard Cohen’s former home — a detail that fits a record built on that kind of wandering attention to place. As Head of Contemporary Music Ben Marshall put it, there is “a rare, luminous alchemy to their music that has resonated globally while remaining deeply anchored to an Australian sense of place.”

Sydney Opera House exterior in daylight with the Forecourt steps visible — Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The 28 February concert marks the first announced date of the Opera House’s 2027 Forecourt summer program and the duo’s first national headline tour since their sold-out 2024 run. Marshall describes experiencing them at the Forecourt as “a breathtaking collision of world-class artistry, communal intimacy, and the natural beauty of Sydney in summer.” The show joins a season that will also feature Dijon, Cat Power and Tara Clerkin Trio, with more artists still to come.

Angus and Julia Stone broke through in 2007 with A Book Like This, but the turning point came with Down the Way — the ARIA Award-winning album that produced Big Jet Plane, the triple j Hottest 100 winner that remains one of the most-streamed songs in Australian music history. Their self-titled 2014 record, Snow in 2017 and Cape Forestier in 2024 kept extending the reach without diminishing the intimacy that defines their live shows. Five ARIA Awards across a catalogue now approaching twenty years trace a career built on consistency over reinvention.

Angus & Julia Stone play the Sydney Opera House Forecourt on Sunday, 28 February 2027. Gates open at 6pm. Tickets are $119.90 plus booking fee. Pre-sales begin Tuesday 9 September — Insiders at 9am and Album at 2pm — followed by What’s On pre-sale Wednesday 10 September and general public on sale Friday 11 September at midday. Tickets and full program information are available at sydneyoperahouse.com.

Tags: sydney opera house, Angus & Julia Stone, Australian music, Ben Marshall, Karaoke Bar