The Superloop Adelaide 500 lays down some serious rubber with their high-octane live music line-up, featuring a stack of international and Australian talent including rockers Jet.
Jet made their indelible mark on Australian rock with their 2003 debut album ‘Get Born’, which spawned a number of smash-hit singles including their most well-known song – ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’.
The album launched the Melbourne band onto the global stage and into a punishing touring schedule that doubled as a travelling rock & roll party. “We used to be a bit of a party band,” bassist Mark Williams laughs, “but we make sure the shows are killer as well.
“In fact back then, the party would just roll on to the stage for an hour-and-a-half then roll off again; pretty loose.”
Then in 2010, the band played their final show and went on hiatus; by 2012, Jet officially said ‘thank you and goodnight’. Accustomed to the life of a travelling rock star with carefully managed timetables, Mark says he found himself at a loss when it all was over.
“It’s your life, it’s all you know and then all of a sudden it stops and you realise you don’t actually fit into the real world anymore because you’ve done this crazy thing throughout your life and you haven’t got a lot of transferable skills really,” he says.
“You’re basically pointed in a direction by schedules, then you put your head down and work. Then there’s no one telling you where to be and what to do anymore, and it’s quite strange.”
Reforming in 2017 to support Bruce Springsteen on his Australian summer tour and also play a handful of their own shows, it seemed Jet were officially back in the skies. Last year, Jet hit the tarmac once again to celebrate the 15th anniversary of ‘Get Born’. “I think we’ve got a good balance now,” Mark says.
“We do shows here and there and we play festivals and do little tours, but we’ve all got families so we try to find a nice balance so that it’s really fun for us but we’ve also got time for Nic’s [Cester] other projects.
“At the end of the day we’re just great friends who needed a bit of time away from each other and now that we’re a bit older and wiser, it’s working out.”
This March, the Jet party bus rolls into town for the Superloop Adelaide 500 as part of the event’s live music line-up that also features Red Hot Chili Peppers, Amy Shark and Vance Joy, with Jet sharing the Saturday headline with The Living End. “I hear there's a pretty massive crowd and everyone's pretty up for it,” Mark says in anticipation of the Adelaide 500.
“I mean, rock & roll suits the Supercar vibe too, doesn't it? The Living End are a very good live band and good to follow because they don’t play sh.t shows, so it’s always really nice to go after a band that pushes you to do a great job as well.”
