I was never a scene kid, and I’ve accepted this as a huge loss on my part. I wasn’t allowed to hang out at a Westfield, nor was I on Myspace. I did, however, love my side fringe, and in 2010, I listened to Short Stack’s ‘Planets’ religiously on my mum’s hot pink iPod Shuffle. It sat somewhere between Owl City’s ‘Fireflies’ and the Black Eyed Peas’ ‘I Gotta Feeling’ – a deeply considered playlist that made perfect sense at the time.
Short Stack were huge. In 2009, they were punching well above their weight, winning Nickelodeon awards and filling all-ages venues with screaming teens. Their debut album ‘Stack Is the New Black’ hit number one, the band were basically household names, and it felt like every girl in a Jay Jays hoodie had a crush on Shaun Diviney. Then, in 2012, they quietly disbanded – folded away into the shoeboxes we’ve all got somewhere, filled with burned CDs, a Nokia flip phone, and that old iPod Shuffle you lost the charger for.
Eight years isn’t too long, but when your core demographic is high schoolers, a lot can change, and it might as well have been a millennium. Still, in 2020, Short Stack made their return official. They reunited with the promise of new material, dropped the comeback album ‘Maybe There’s No Heaven’ in 2022, and hit the regional tour circuit. In 2023, they landed a slot on the Good Things festival lineup.
Fast-forward to 2024, and here we are at UNSW Roundhouse for the 15th anniversary tour of ‘Stack Is the New Black’ and the band’s biggest headline hometown show to date. Forever Ends Here opened the night, another throwback pop-punk act who’ve recently resurfaced with some of their strongest material yet. RedHook followed, brought to life by lead singer Emmy Mack and the scores of fans screaming at the barrier.
Naturally, there was no better warm-up than a full-room scream-sing of ‘Mr Brightside’ just as the lights dimmed. Were there tech issues? Absolutely. Did the stage banter occasionally veer into something genuinely awkward? Definitely. But honestly, who cares?
Short Stack launched into all the hits ‘Shimmy a Go Go’, ‘Princess’, ‘We Dance to a Different Disco, Honey’ – a nostalgia speedrun. It wasn’t the time for a reinvention or a sentimental farewell. For the fans who once begged their parents to take them to the Sunrise window at 5am on a Sunday (iconic), it was a celebration. And for the rest of us? A brief, glorious return to part of the subconscious that holds on to every word to every song without even realising it.
Will they keep releasing new music? Maybe. But even if they don’t, I like to imagine a future where every five to ten years, they reassemble, dust off the old CDs, and have everyone screaming “Sway, Sway Baby” again. That being said, I’m willing to bet a wide-spread resurgence of raccoon tail hair, wired headphones and Tumblr nostalgia-core any minute now, and perhaps there is unlocked potential in a generation that doesn’t even know Short Stack yet.
