The Bird’s Robe 15th birthday tour will feature COG, Trail of Dead, sleepmakeswaves, Caspian, Closure in Moscow, and more
Australian music company Bird’s Robe has announced a special series of seven shows to celebrate its 15th anniversary, taking place over two weekends in December this year. The celebratory lineup features an impressive array of headliners, including Australian rock icons COG, Texas-based post-hardcore pioneers …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, acclaimed Sydney post-rock outfit sleepmakeswaves, and cinematic rock luminaries Caspian from Boston.
watch the tour announce trailer
The Bird’s Robe 15th birthday tour will visit Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne across two weekends – December 5-7 and December 11-14 – and feature a diverse lineup of artists from the Bird’s Robe roster.
Highlights include the first Australian performances in over a decade for both …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead and Caspian, alongside the long-awaited reunions of math-prog pioneers Squat Club and ambient rock outfit Grun.
Fan favourites including COG, sleepmakeswaves, Meniscus, SEIMS, Anubis, and Shanghai will deliver their only Australian shows of 2025, while Closure in Moscow and Toehider return to home stages for the first time in ten months.
Affectionately dubbed ‘Mikefest II’, the tour follows the label’s original fifth birthday celebration held at Sydney’s Manning Bar in 2015. The original event earned the informal nickname ‘Mikefest’ from the artists, in tribute to Bird’s Robe founder Mike Solo.
Beyond the music, fans can look forward to exclusive merch giveaways, meet-and-greets, complimentary food and drinks for early arrivals, and even table tennis tournaments at select venues.
The celebration also coincides with the release of the Bird’s Robe documentary series, which premiered its first episode last week. New episodes are set to drop fortnightly from July through December.
watch episode 1: the beginning
Bird’s Robe has established itself as a cornerstone of Australia’s post-rock and progressive music scene, representing some of the country’s most acclaimed and adventurous artists. The label’s roster includes internationally recognised acts such as sleepmakeswaves, We Lost The Sea, Closure in Moscow, Toehider, Meniscus, The Crooked Fiddle Band, Troldhaugen, and Solkyri, among others.
Plans to mark Bird’s Robe’s 10th anniversary with a series of live events in 2020 were ultimately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These celebrations pivoted to the production of a documentary series, which also faced delays amid extended lockdowns and restrictions.
In its 15-year history, Bird’s Robe has promoted more than 1,500 shows and released over 200 records, including five ARIA-nominated albums and seven #1 albums on the Australian Independent Charts, amassing over 50 million streams across its catalogue to date.
Director Mike Solo says:
Ten years ago, on Saturday 5 December in 2015, a bunch of bands playing post-rock, prog, metal and alternative rock got together at Manning Bar in Sydney, Australia to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Bird’s Robe Records. It was awesome.
Since then, we’ve crossed the globe many more times, survived a global pandemic and come out the other side with even more talent to showcase from our little niche. So please join us to relive the memories, create new ones & celebrate an epic ride of prog, post rock, and otherwise innovative music with our friends & family.
If you’ve never had the chance to see some of these bands, we hope our efforts to bring them all together in the one place make for a worthy day/night of entertainment.
BIRD’S ROBE 15TH BIRTHDAY TOUR
Friday 5 December – The Brightside Outdoors + Indoors, Brisbane
COG + Caspian (USA) + Kodiak Empire + hazards of swimming naked + Echotide + Squat Club
Saturday 6 December – Max Watts, Melbourne
Caspian (USA) + Suldusk + Meniscus + Solkyri + Squat Club + Treebeard
Sunday 7 December – Manning Bar, Sydney
sleepmakeswaves + Caspian (USA) + Closure in Moscow + Toehider + Anubis + Squat Club + Treebeard + Kodiak Empire + Mowgli + clayhands + Hence Confetti + The Orphaned Bee
Thursday 11 December – The Triffid, Brisbane
…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (USA) + SEIMS + Shanghai + the sea shall not have them
Friday 12 December – Max Watts, Melbourne
COG + …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (USA) + Mushroom Giant + SEIMS + the sea shall not have them
Saturday 13 December – Max Watts, Melbourne
sleepmakeswaves + ..And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (USA) + Closure in Moscow + Toehider + Anubis + Kodiak Empire + Echotide + Svntax Error + Myriad Drone
Sunday 14 December – Metro Theatre + Metro Social, Sydney
COG + …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (USA) + Meniscus + Solkyri + SEIMS + Squat Club + Shanghai + Mushroom Giant + Echotide + Myriad Drone + Svntax Error + Grun
details and tickets from birdsrobe.com
MORE ABOUT BIRD’S ROBE: THIS IS FAMILY
Over 10 years ago, Bird’s Robe Records was launched with a live show in a little club in Sydney called the Excelsior Hotel, along with our first 2 releases.
Since then, it’s been a truly incredible ride. Hundreds of shows, thousands of fans & millions of streams (not dollars, haha), for artists who don’t tread a musical path that would be considered conventional.
This is the story of how some of Australia’s most unlikely underground musicians were drawn together under a bird-themed moniker and go on to form a scene that would see its music shared across the globe.
If you love post-rock, prog or otherwise experimental rock, chances are that you’re a fan of a Bird’s Robe band. Whether it’s the crushing, emotional crescendos of sleepmakeswaves, We Lost The Sea and Meniscus, the fiery, catchy prog rock of Toehider & Closure in Moscow, or the quirky inexplicable energy of The Crooked Fiddle Band and Troldhaugen, this wide array of genres and styles have one thing in common: they are family.
Since 2008, Bird’s Robe has been at the heart of a burgeoning scene of innovative and experimental musicians based in Australia. This group of acts have spread their wings over the past decade to go from bedrooms and rehearsal spaces, to performing at some of the world’s most iconic venues and festivals, achieving an impressive level of mainstream recognition despite the odds.
This documentary seeks to tell this story in ambitious fashion – because the story of Bird’s Robe, is the story of the bands themselves.
This is a multi-episode documentary, which will not only explore the origin and development of Bird’s Robe as a label, management & touring organisation, but also the individual paths of key artists, such as sleepmakeswaves, We Lost The Sea, Meniscus, Tangled Thoughts of Leaving, Closure in Moscow, Toehider and many more.
This isn’t going to just be a series of montages and highlight reels (though there’ll be plenty of that). We’re going to cover a range of topics, including what it’s like living life on the road, trying to build a career in the music industry, juggling family, relationships, mental health, finances and everything else. We’ll be chatting to not only the musicians, but also the crew and the teams behind the scenes who make everything work. There are some wonderful stories to be told, but also some challenging and cautionary tales, which we want to share as well. It’s going to be inspirational, funny, sad, cathartic and nostalgic for sure – but also informative and transparent.
This is a truly epic project, but we wanted to do nothing less: any story about this group of exceptional musicians has to be as epic as the music itself. Sounds reasonable right? Big thanks to James O’Connor, our co-producer and DoP; and everyone else who has contributed to this along the way.