LIVE REVIEW: Missy Higgins shines with her closing Night At The Parkland performance!
Sunday night marked the closing of the 2026 Night At The Parklands event series at Roma Street Parklands, and Brisbane was in for a treat. With an afternoon show scheduled to appease those working on Monday, audiences filed in early at 4pm to catch Missy Higgins perform a sunset show with local indie-pop acts Hazel Mei and Jem Cassar-Daley.
Starting the afternoon’s festivities in style was LivewireAU favourite Hazel Mei, joined by Tiahn on keys. Their bright demeanours complimented the warmth of the afternoon sunrays as they dove through the Hazel Mei discography, giving a moment to shine to the tracks that don’t often make the live setlist. “Something Missy Higgins has always done beautifully is being unapologetically vulnerable and raw in her lyrics,” shared Hazel Mei, reaching for Tiahn’s hand as she channelled an onstage moment of bravery, “Listening to her new album inspired me to sing my most vulnerable song that I can’t bring myself to record… I hope you like it, it’s called ‘Adore Me’”. This song proved to be an absolute highlight of the set, and I envy those who managed to grab one of Hazel Mei’s QR codes that led to a voice recording of this unreleased track. The set included further unreleased songs from an upcoming album, before Hazel Mei asked the crowd “Does anyone like being silly? That’s my bread and butter!” before showing off her “dorkiest” dance moves and closing her performance with several opportunities for crowd participation which leftsmiling faces shining through the crowd.
The second act of the night was one of Brisbane’s most exciting emerging artists, Jem Cassar-Daley. Riding the high of the release of her phenomenal debut album Tattoos Used To Come Off In The Pool, Cassar-Daley closed off her weekend of headline shows in Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne with a stripped back acoustic set, joined by Mark Chester Harding on guitar. Sharing that “Missy inspired so much of my songwriting”, and that she had been pinching herself at this opportunity, Jem Cassar-Daley cycled through new releases from her debut album and fan favourites, including ‘Speak Now’, ‘Souvenir’, and ‘Into Sunsets’. After a tender moment with her hit ‘King Of Disappointment’, Cassar-Daley took a moment to cheer on the Brisbane Lions after missing their game last night but “hearing the cheers” from where she was performing in Northcote. Jem Cassar-Daley was a phenomenal pick for this lineup, with her dedication as a lifelong Missy Higgins fan on full display when she shared that Sound Of White was the first CD she played in her pink CD player as a kid. After taking a moment to play ‘The Water Is Wide’, a hymn she used to sing with her family, Jem Cassar-Daley closed her hometown performance with fan favourite ‘Kiss Me Like You’re Leaving’.
The audience was abuzz with excitement in the lead up to the headline set of the night, counting the moments until the woman who has soundtracked the past two decades of their lives made her way onto the stage. Cheers erupted as Missy Higgins walked onto the stage with a casual wave, grabbing a ukelele and launching into the first backstory of the night, a tale of sleepless nights with her son and how a simple improvised lullaby melody grew into her first track of the set, ‘Song for Sammy’.
From the first song alone, you could tell that tonight was going to be a truly magical experience. As the sun set and the sky transformed through various shades of blues to a moonlit black, bats flew overhead and the audience hung on every word.
Missy Higgins reflected on the recent 20th anniversary of her debut album The Sound Of White, moving to the piano to play ‘Katie’ before jumping on guitar to play ‘Secret’. “I played this one at one of those live televised events, WaveAid! I started on the wrong note,” she shared, shaking her head at the memory, “But I’m not so scared of you guys!” Higgins shared when introducing ‘Secret’, establishing her routine rotation between instruments for each song and sharing little stories along the way.
When introducing ‘Ten Days’, Missy Higgins reflected on her day in Brisbane and going for a bike & scooter ride along the river, “What a bloody gorgeous place you guys live in!... You guys are getting cooler and cooler – I don’t know if that’s a backhanded insult!” she laughed. During ‘Ten Days’, my attention was captured by the band and the choreographed dancing of Sarah Belkner and Elana Stone. These two kept stealing the spotlight throughout the night, demonstrating how cathartic these songs truly are.
The setlis included several tracks from Higgins’ latest release, The Second Act. In introducing the album, Missy Higgins reflected on the naivety that sheltered first album, The Sound Of White, and how she felt that same raw emotion when approaching her latest album, in the wake of her separation from her husband. “I thought I came all this way, then realised life is one big learning lesson…it was very humbling”, she mused at the beginning of ‘The In-Between’.
Fan favourite ‘Peachy’ was introduced as “the sequel to ‘Ten Days’”, sparking a crowd wide singalong before Higgins surprised everyone with her cover of Tim Finn’s ‘Stuff and Nonsense’ from the She Will Have Her Way album, marking only the eighth time in 21 years that she’s performed the song live.
When moving to piano to play ‘Everyone’s Waiting’, Higgins laughed about a bug that had not left the keyboard the whole night, before bringing the audience to tears with the heartfelt performance. She continued to pull on everyone’s heartstrings with a performance of ‘When 4 Became 3’, before dedicating ‘A Complicated Truth’ to her daughter who excitedly cartwheeled onto the stage at the end of the song to give her mum a hug.
With a joke about making sure the audience all had a therapist on speed dial, Higgins played ‘The Second Act’ and ‘The Special Two’ back to back. When preparing to play the last of the songs from her new album, Missy Higgins realised the live show was being cast on multiple screens throughout the venue. “I didn’t know I was on a screen! There must have been some awkward close ups, I’m wondering what funny faces I’ve pulled!” she exclaims before playing ‘Crater’, followed by her cover of ‘NYE’.
Sitting back at the piano, Higgins shared “It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to come back here…I will keep coming back as long as you will have me Brisbane!”. With a laugh, she said “If you’ve been dragged along here tonight and have no clue who I am, you might know this one” before bringing the crowd to their feet with ‘Scar’. Orchestrating the crowd in a schooltime-choir chorus singalong, this special moment of the set evoked pure goosebumps.
Closing the set with one final instrument switch to play the guitar at center stage, Higgins regaled the audience with her iconic story of stargazing in Broome to sort through the noise from others trying to direct her music career, before breaking into the last heartfelt singalong moment of the night with ‘Steer’.
The band made their way to the front of the stage for a theatrical group bow to a standing ovation of applause, as ‘Edge Of Town’ by Middle Kids played through the venue speakers. The night that just played out was one impossible to simply walk away from, with the emotion and pure onstage magic of that performance set to linger for many days to come. With a program laden with pure Australian icons, Night At The Parklands 2027 return will be highly anticipated by thousands.
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