Regurgitator's Jukeboxxin' tour sounds deceptively simple: a run of shows built entirely around the band's singles.
On paper, it reads like a tidy retrospective. In practice, it's become something far more ambitious – and far more exhausting.
"This is literally the longest show we've ever played," co-frontman Quan Yeomans says, half-amused, half-disbelieving.
"It’s astonishing because people still kind of stand around for it. I'm amazed. It’'s almost two hours long. It's nuts."
At nearly one hour and fifty minutes, with no interval and no costume-change theatrics to break it up, Jukeboxxin' demands stamina.
Yeomans admits he'd promised himself he would train for it. "I kind of said I'd prepare myself for it and didn't get 'round to doing that," he laughs. "So I'm just kind of preparing myself as we go."
Surprisingly, it hasn't been as punishing as expected. "When you do 45-minute shows, you throw a bit more at it and scream a bit more.
"Whereas these longer ones, it's got a nice modulation through the show – it goes from high hectic to quite mellow. So it's not too bad."
"I hadn't seen [former drummer Martin Lee] for 25 years. I gave him a huge hug. We met the next day and had coffee for three hours." - Quan Yeomans
With more than three decades behind them and "like, 54 singles or something ridiculous," the band had to be ruthless selecting the set list. "There's no way we could do that. So we just picked the ones we didn't hate, essentially."
That blunt filter has brought some long-shelved tracks back to life. Songs like 'Happiness' and 'Superstraight' have slipped comfortably into the set, helped by the addition of guitarist and keys player Sarah Lim.
"With the second guitarist, you can get a lot more of the intricate guitar parts in there," Yeomans says. "Some of them were actually a nice surprise."
Others were avoided for years for more personal reasons. "There's songs we haven't played for a while because of emotional connections – ones about ex-girlfriends and stuff like that – but they seem to work fine."
Time, it seems, dulls the sting. The process of revisiting songs written in his 20s and 30s creates a strange psychological distance for Quan.
"You don't really feel like the person who wrote those songs anymore," he says. "You feel like you're covering someone else's music. You're a cover band of your own band."
That dislocation doesn’t necessarily diminish them, but it does shift the relationship.
"When I play some of those earlier tracks, I do miss how experimental and how little of a f... we gave back then," he reflects.
"I kind of wonder why I gave up and went towards more pop, formulaic writing. You write less interesting music as a result of that."
In the band's earliest days, chaos was fuel. "When you first start out, there's tension and you're bouncing off people you don't really know. There's a lot of friction, and that makes you do weirder stuff."
Weirder chord progressions. Stranger structures. Songs that, even now, surprise him.
"Look at something like 'Miffy's Simplicity'. You go, 'why did I write like that?'. I have no idea how I came up with those songs. It's really strange."
That same tension that feeds creativity can destroy longevity. "A lot of bands start out chaotically. There's fighting in the studio and that energy works its way into the records, but taken out on tour, that's why most bands implode."
Regurgitator didn't, and Yeomans thinks he knows why. "The reason this works so well for so long is that our personalities kind of got more in the groove with each other and more family orientated."
That sense of family has only deepened with time. The addition of Lim has amplified it. "It's like finding a family member, really," he says.
"She's got incredible stage presence. She brings this great energy. We find noodle shops together – it's all about the noodles for us."
Her presence isn't just cosmetic. Quan is already thinking about how she'll shape the band's next record. "We'll definitely have to factor her into it. Hopefully something interesting will come out of that."
Growth has also meant reckoning with old ghosts. Recently, Yeomans ran into former drummer Martin Lee – whom he hadn't seen in more than two decades – completely by chance on a Melbourne street.
"I hadn't seen him for 25 years," Quan says. "I gave him a huge hug. We met the next day and had coffee for three hours. It was just a lovely way of closing that strangeness that had been between us for that long."
Age, perspective and sobriety have reshaped the internal dynamic too. Bassist Ben Ely recently stopped drinking. "Honestly, his anxiety levels have gotten a lot better," Yeomans says.
"You don't realise when you're touring around what psychological problems you're covering up with drugs and alcohol and music."
There's a calm now that didn't exist in the '90s. Fewer implosions. Fewer ego wars. More intention.
Out front, the crowd tells its own story. At any given Jukeboxxin' show, Yeomans can see three generations. Parents reliving their youth. Teenagers discovering the band for the first time.
"They're not nostalgic about the music," he says of younger fans. "They're experiencing it for the first time. That's really cool."
Yeomans recently started a screenwriting diploma at RMIT and found one of his teenage classmates had one of Regurgitator's songs on a playlist, with no idea who he was.
"That randomness about it. . . I love that," he says. "You see what we saw when we were young. That discovery."
Watching that coexist with the 40- and 50-year-olds in the room is surreal. "For them, it's placing them back in their youth. For the younger ones, it's new. I really love that diverse reaction."
If there's a through-line across the band's career, it's humour. Not novelty for novelty's sake, but humour as survival. "The world is so f...ing crazy," Yeomans says.
"The only thing you can do is look after the people around you and just have fun and try and maintain a sense of dignity through humour."
Regurgitator has always poked at society; sometimes with a jab, sometimes with a wink. "You want to be a little bit of an antidote," he says.
"Make fun of yourself, make fun of the world, make fun of the mad men out there, and hopefully alleviate a little bit of that stress."
That ethos extends beyond the stage. Yeomans still believes in community spaces, the kind that shaped him.
"I always wish there were more mid-size venues that didn't have to struggle to pay their insurance," he says. "Without that, you have a really weak scene."
He lights up talking about grassroots spaces like Singing Bird Studios in Geelong, an all-ages punk hub run by one dedicated local.
"There's kids running everywhere, metal bands rehearsing next door, a studio you can book for hardly any money. It's those kind of things that are missing. That's what gives it heart."
Heart is also what separates art from algorithm. Yeomans is blunt about the current cultural moment. "That's why AI sucks," he says. "You can't see the artist in it."
Regurgitator's sound, he argues, was built on failure, trying to emulate heroes and falling short in interesting ways.
"We'd try and write a Prince song and come up with something vaguely like him, but really B-grade and with bits of ourselves through it; and that's how you create something authentic."
After 30 years, they're still doing exactly that – failing, experimenting, finding new angles on old songs – and somehow, against all odds, people are still standing there for the full two hours.
Regurgitator 2026 Tour Dates
Fri 13 Mar - Marlin Tavern (South Coast)
Sat 14 Mar - The Baso (Canberra)
Sun 15 Mar - SS&A Club (Albury)
Fri 20 Mar - La La La's (Wollongong)
Sat 21 Mar - King St (Newcastle)
Sun 22 Mar - Crowbar Sydney
Fri 10 Apr - 170 Russell (Melbourne)
Sat 11 Apr - The Croxton (Melbourne)
Fri 17 Apr - Tanks Arts Centre (Cairns)
Sat 18 Apr - The Warehouse (Townsville)
Sun 19 Apr - McGuires Hotel (Mackay)
Fri 24 Apr - The Tivoli (Brisbane)
Sat 25 Apr - The Princess Theatre (Brisbane)
Sun 26 Apr - The Empire Theatre (Toowoomba)
Fri 1 May - Liberty Hall (Sydney)
Sun 3 May - Blue Mountains Theatre
