LIVE REVIEW: MEN AT WORK – A NIGHT LIKE NO OTHER @ COBB ENERGY CENTER, ATLANTA, GA – JULY 21, 2026

The Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta is not a room built for rock and roll in the traditional sense. It is velvet seats and a proscenium arch, the kind of hall where you expect a touring production of a musical, not three bands from three different decades and three different countries. But on July 21st it worked, mostly because the crowd that filled it skewed exactly toward the demographic that grew up on all three acts and had the patience to sit through an evening that asked you to actually listen.

Shonen Knife opened, and if you didn’t know better you would swear this trio formed last year in some basement in Osaka rather than in 1981. Guitarist Naoko Yamano is the sole founding member left standing, flanked now by her sister Atsuko Yamano and bassist Risa Kawano, and together they play with a speed and a grin that makes most young punk bands look like they’re trying too hard. They played fast, they played loud, and at some point they had the entire room chanting the word “candy” back at them like it was the most important word in the English language. It shouldn’t have worked in a seated theater. It did anyway. Watching them, you understood how this band once got the nod to open for Nirvana in 1991. Bands starting out today chase the exact sound Shonen Knife had already nailed forty-some years ago, and that is not nostalgia talking, that is just true.

Toad the Wet Sprocket followed with a set full of familiar favorites. At the band’s request, photography and video were not permitted during their performance. Signs at the entrances made the policy clear, and security kept a close eye on anyone who pulled out a phone.

Between songs, frontman Glen Phillips shared that he had recently become a grandfather, delivering the news with a mix of humor and sincerity that drew both laughs and knowing smiles from a crowd that has grown older alongside the band. He also mentioned that the very first concert he ever attended was Men at Work. It was a fitting moment, considering they would take the stage later that evening, bringing things full circle for Phillips decades after seeing them as a fan.

Colin Hay opened by more or less inviting the debate himself, telling the crowd that people say this isn’t really Men at Work anymore, then daring everyone to decide for themselves by the end of the night. It’s a fair question. He revived the name in 2019, and the band moves through eras of songs that are, as he put it himself between songs, often about a particular kind of trouble, a bad omen dressed up as a pop hook. “Touching the Untouchables” and “No Restrictions” opened things loose and confident, and “Looking for Jack,” a 1984 song Hay said never really charted but clearly still means something to him, got one of the warmest receptions of the night, an old deep cut treated like a hit. “Everything I Need” carried a strange little ghost with it, Hay noting that the woman who appeared in that video, Tania, is gone now, and the room went quiet in the particular way a crowd goes quiet when a joke stops being a joke for a second.

“Overkill” and “It’s a Mistake” reminded everyone how strange and how good these songs still sound, all nervous energy and sax lines that have aged like nothing else from that decade. Then “Who Can It Be Now?” and “Down Under” landed back to back near the close, and that voice, that particular Colin Hay warble on “I come from a land down under,” has genuinely not lost a thing. It gave me chills in the least ironic way possible. “Be Good Johnny” closed it out, and by then the argument Hay had opened the set with had answered itself. As long as he is standing at the center of these songs, singing them like he still means every word, they carry the same life they always did. Call it whatever lineup you want. It’s still Men at Work where it counts.

The tour keeps rolling after Atlanta with stops in Cohasset, Bangor, Atlantic City, and Harrington. If any of those shows are within driving distance, go. Leave your phone in your pocket, let Shonen Knife wake you up, let Toad the Wet Sprocket remind you what a great chorus feels like, and let Colin Hay, backed by a rock-solid Men At Work, make his case one more time. By the final encore, it’s a difficult argument to win against him.

Men At Work Photo Gallery

Shonen Knife Photo Gallery

Setlist

• Touching the Untouchables
• No Restrictions
• Can’t Take This Town
• Down by the Sea
• I Can See It in Your Eyes
• Looking for Jack
• Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive
• Everything I Need
• Catch a Star
• Overkill
• It’s a Mistake
• Who Can It Be Now?
• Down Under
• Be Good Johnny

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Live photography by Chris Collett for No Flash Needed. © 2026 No Flash Needed. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without written permission.