"Yuo Am I" (allegedly) | Credit: Martin Philbey/Getty Images

“Yuo Am I” Announce “Secret” Sydney Show For May 2024

March 7, 2024

You Am I have alerted fans that a mysterious band by the name of “Yuo Am I” will be playing a very “secret” show at Sydney venue Crowbar on Friday May 17th. Tickets for this very hush-hush event will go on sale from midday local time tomorrow (March 8) via Oztix, with speculation already rampant as to who this enigmatic band could be and what their association with You Am I is.

The band shared the news on their social media, beginning with a story of drummer Russell Hopkinson attending shows on Parramatta Road in Sydney – home to the Annandale Hotel, which You Am I played frequently throughout the 90s and 2000s. “There have been a few occasions of late where going to shows on that stretch, or just off it, have felt anything but nostalgic,” the statement read.

“At Crowbar and The Duke in Enmore, The Great Club in Marrickville and a half-dozen others as an audient [sic], stepping into the venue after a stroll through subtle and not-so-subtle landscape changes, your shoulders could drop and enjoy the pinball of conversation in-between performances of power and panache.

Even if you were the oldest and most delusional in the room, you felt part of a crew. Fuck whatever was the zeitgeist for that passing hour – you took a punt on a group or a performer, and you could get lost in it for that night and hopefully carry it through any woes of the coming week.”

You Am I – ‘Cathy’s Clown’

Hopkinson went on to note that “Yuo Am I”, whomever they may be, wished to play at Crowbar in order to remind themselves of their pub-rock origins. “For many reasons, groups want to press the re-set button and, if not re-invent their wheels, spin around and remind themselves how fortunate they should be to remain sentient and able to make a racket,” he concluded.

You Am I – who are in no way endorsed or sponsored by “Yuo Am I” – kicked off 2024 with a series of shows opening for The Darkness. There, the band served as main support performing their show The Majesty of Tap – a tribute to the music of Spinal Tap. They were joined by DZ Deathrays and Cry Club for these dates.

The band also undertook two major tours in 2023: A theatre tour in which they performed The Who‘s rock opera Tommy in its entirety across July and August, with assistance from Hayley Mary and Sarah McLeod, and a headlining tour titled The You’s Pull Up Their Troos across November and December.

The announcement of the “Yuo Am I” show this coming May has posed many questions. Who are they, these rockstars? Who put the devil in them? Who takes who home? How much is enough? With any luck, some answers will be given when this cryptic collective kick a hole in the sky at Crowbar in May.