'80s Rock Band Announces 2026 Tour With Special Guests
Men at Work is heading home for a major tour this fall.
The Grammy-winning Australian rock band announced on Instagram that it will join the Red Hot Summer Tour 2026, a traveling festival that will take the group across Australia this fall.
"Australia, get ready - Men At Work is joining Red Hot Summer Tour 2026!" the band wrote. "From October 17 – November 15, catch the band performing across Australia alongside an incredible lineup of artists."
Joining Men at Work on the tour will be special guests Birds of Tokyo, Vika & Linda, Eskimo Joe, Boom Crash Opera and Ella Hooper. The tour kicks off Oct. 17 at Queens Park in Toowoomba before making stops in Sandstone Point, Berry, Manly, Hunter Valley, Coolangatta, Ballarat, Mornington, Swan Valley and Glenelg.
According to the band's announcement, presale tickets begin June 23 at 10 a.m. AEST, with general ticket sales launching June 25.
Men at Work became one of Australia's biggest musical exports during the early 1980s, thanks to a string of international hits led by Colin Hay's distinctive vocals and songwriting. The band's debut album, Business as Usual, became a worldwide phenomenon, producing classics including "Who Can It Be Now?," "Down Under" and "Be Good Johnny."
"Down Under" proved especially successful, reaching No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and charts around the world while becoming an enduring anthem celebrating Australian culture.
"I'd had these lyrics in my head for a while – 'Do you come from a land Down Under?' – and I would sing them over this percussion thing in the car," Hay said in an interview with Classic Pop. "They just kind of fit. I got excited by that, so I kept doing that for a few hours. The next day I wrote the chord structure and the lyrics, and the track all of a sudden sprang to life."
The band went on to earn the 26th Annual Grammy Awards award for Best New Artist, cementing its place among the defining acts of the decade.
"America was the last place to pick up on the band," Hay told Classic Bands. "It was actually about a year after the record was successful in other parts of the world that the American record company released it. They certainly weren't looking to Australia for guidance as to what was going to happen in America. It was only really after it started to sell records in different parts of the world and people started playing it in America that the record company decided that they could make it work and released it."
More than 40 years after first topping the charts, Men at Work continues to perform for audiences around the globe.
Now, alongside a lineup featuring some of Australia's most beloved contemporary rock acts, the band is set to bring its timeless catalog back to fans across the country as part of one of the nation's biggest concert tours of 2026.
2026 Red Hot Summer Tour dates
- Oct. 17 – Queens Park – Toowoomba, Queensland
- Oct. 18 – Sandstone Point Hotel – Sandstone Point, Queensland
- Oct. 24 – Berry Showground – Berry, New South Wales
- Oct. 25 – Keirle Park – Manly, New South Wales
- Oct. 31 – Roche Estate – Hunter Valley, New South Wales
- Nov. 1 – Coolangatta Beach – Coolangatta, Queensland
- Nov. 7 – Victoria Park – Ballarat, Victoria
- Nov. 8 – Mornington Racecourse – Mornington, Victoria
- Nov. 14 – Sandalford Wines – Swan Valley, Western Australia
- Nov. 15 – Glenelg Beach – Glenelg, South Australia
Related: 1971 Rock Classic, Lasting Nearly 8 Minutes, Became a Timeless Road Trip Anthem
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This story was originally published June 15, 2026 at 8:43 PM.