The Admired at Vic on The Park Hotel

The Admired are the band playing the last song at the high school dance, or soundtracking your older sister’s bedroom in the mid-00s. Hailing from Sydney, the two-piece bring together an array of Y2K pop-rock influences, pulling from the likes of Goo Goo Dolls, Britney Spears and 00s pop-punk to bring you back to your poster-filled bedroom. Bianca and Max have a longstanding history in the Australian pop-punk scene through their previous band, Grenade Jumper. With The Admired, however, they’re building something far more layered and personal, driven by a strong visual identity and a world designed to pull listeners further into the project. “We wanted to develop a sound that evoked the yearning of the Y2K era - a time marked by being on the precipice of the unknown. In the early 00s, we were all so excited about the future, which I think is starkly different to how our generation feels today. The sound and aesthetic of that time is so brightly optimistic, and when we look back on it with rose-coloured glasses, there’s something bittersweet about it because we know what the outcome of the future is now.” - Bianca Davino