Walking into the Enmore Theatre tonight, I’m not entirely sure what to expect. Bear McCreary isn’t a household name in the pop culture sense, but he has quietly scored some of the most emotionally charged, world-building moments in modern TV, film, and gaming—The Rings of Power, God of War, Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead. Still, it’s rare to see a composer known for sweeping strings and atmospheric dread step out in front of a five-piece band and treat the stage like a rock venue rather than a scoring stage.
Sydney-born and LA-based singer/songwriter Portair opens up proceedings tonight. He’s amassed more than 30 million streams in just a few years, and he delights the crowd with ambient textures and emotive songwriting that gently primes the audience for what’s to come.
When McCreary and his band take the stage, if you were expecting an orchestral sound, you’d be surprised. There’s no orchestra pit here. Instead, his band hits with hard rock energy, and the tone shifts to something looser—part prog-rock, part theatrical recital, part fever dream.
McCreary moves between instruments, sometimes conducting with a nod or simply dropping into a riff with the band. In between songs, he shares stories about how his compositions came about, and I’m struck by just how much he appears to be enjoying himself—clearly revelling in the chance to bring this music to life in a live setting.
The setlist reaches deep into his catalogue, but also pulls from The Singularity, his 2024 concept album made with his brother Brendan that featured a wildly eclectic list of contributors: Slash, Serj Tankian, Corey Taylor, Rufus Wainwright, and even actors Lee Pace and Danai Gurira via spoken word clips from the companion graphic novel.
There are moments where fans around me seem to be hearing the Masters of the Universe theme with a kind of reverence usually reserved for pop anthems. Others lean in during cues from movie scores, as if trying to remember where they were when they first heard them. But the night’s most surprising power comes from The Singularity material —strange and full of texture, with lyrics that teeter between absurd and apocalyptic.
At the Enmore, the lines between soundtrack composer, rock musician, and sci-fi philosopher blur. What begins as a curiosity ends as something closer to ritual—a rare kind of hybrid performance that rewards the quiet obsessives and open-eared wanderers alike.
McCreary heads to Brisbane and Perth next, tickets HERE.
Images Deb Pelser
