It’s Halloween in Sydney and the Hordern Pavilion feels like the inside of a collective hallucination. The crowd is a blur of capes, wigs, fangs, and fake blood; a thousand people embodying every possible version of chaos. Even before bbno$ hits the stage, the energy is manic and unfiltered.
Jungle Bobby, dressed as a clown, opens the night with loose charisma and hazy humour. The audience chants “shoey, shoey” but he waves them off, laughing, explaining he’s sober after a bad accident—“I still do LSD and shrooms though,” he adds, to cheers. Unsurprisingly, his set peaks with Dope, a woozy track that feels perfectly at home in this surreal Halloween carnival.
When bbno$ finally appears—half pumpkin, half dinosaur—the crowd erupts. The Vancouver-born rapper bounces across the stage like he’s caught between a meme and a fever dream. Behind me, every lyric is shouted back in unison. It’s a generational communion built on irony and joy.
There’s something strangely pure about the whole scene. The costumes, the self-awareness, the absurdity—it all loops back into the kind of lighthearted defiance that’s defined bbno$’s rise. His music doesn’t ask for reverence; it just wants you to move, laugh, and forget the outside world for a while.
In the midst of this hallucinogenic vibe I feel both too old and oddly rejuvenated. bbno$’s world is unserious, yes—but it’s also deeply sincere about the need to let go.
Images Deb Pelser
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