Founding Editor and Publisher of the AU review. Currently based in Toronto, Canada. You can follow him on Twitter @larry_heath or on Instagram @larryheath.
The 16th annual AU review countdown of the 40 best albums of the year has arrived. This year, as always, our contributors bring together a mix of artists from Australia and around the world. Hopefully your favourite album(s) made the cut – and maybe you’ll discover a few new ones along the way, too. Read…
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“There are 200 million sandwiches eaten a day in America”, according to Australia’s Ben Gollan. One might say he’s a sandwich aficionado, and he’s not shy to admit it, remarking on a beautiful New York autumn afternoon, “the Sandwich is a global dish that beings people together, which is why I do this tour and…
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One of the world’s most acclaimed musicians, Detroit’s Jack White, is in Sydney this weekend following a run of shows in Victoria as part of the Always Live initiative. Originally expected to be exclusive to the southern state – as was St Vincent in recent weeks – NSW fans were elated to see the iconic…
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We’ve talked at length about how Downtown L.A. has become one of the most exciting precincts in the Californian city – a long overdue rebirth of this historic hub. But when you’ve got just 24 hours to spend here, where should you go? Where should you stay? What should you see? And perhaps most importantly:…
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When The Phantom of the Opera closed last year, after almost 14,000 performances, it ended its reign as the longest running production on Broadway. While it technically still holds the crown as Broadway’s longest running show (of all time), the move passed the mantle of longest running productions currently on Broadway to the 1996 revival…
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On November 15th, Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, kicked off their holiday season with the highly anticipated opening of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. This coincided with updated decor throughout the park, festive performances, new dining and shopping opportunities and even updated outfits for classic Disney characters. Here’s a look at what you can expect from Disneyland…
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Today it was announced that Philadelphia’s Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are coming back to Australia & New Zealand next year as part of the 20th anniversary tour for their 2005 debut, self-titled LP. While the band – which these days is essentially a solo project of its singer/songwriter founder Alec Ounsworth – have released…
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If you’ve been to a variety show in a Spiegeltent in the last decade or so, chances are you’ve been lucky enough to see a production from the cirque ensemble Spiegelworld. The organisation emerged in 2006, with their show Absinthe making a splash in a travelling Spiegeltent at Pier 17 in New York City. While…
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Less than five months after it opened in Orlando, Disneyland’s iconic log flume ride Splash Mountain has received the same makeover in Anaheim, California, with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opening today (November 15th) at Disney’s OG theme park. It’s fair to say this update has been a long time coming. Here’s everything you need to know:…
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Seymour Centre’s contemporary music program, Seymour Nights, returns for another season with live performances from some of the most vibrant voices and artists in Australian music and beyond. Championing local artists and new sounds, performances will take place in Sydney’s Seymour Courtyard, with a diverse repertoire of new music for visitors to enjoy. And it all…
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It’s recently been announced that Epic Universe will open its portals in Orlando, Florida on 22nd May 2025! The first round of tickets sales – with the 2025 Explorer Ticket that’s inclusive of a single day of Epic Universe entry – and Helios Grand Hotel bookings begun on Tuesday 22nd October 2024. This comes after…
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On a recent visit to Buffalo in New York, right by Niagara Falls, I was lucky enough to spend a weekend in a historic 1898 mansion, InnBuffalo. This building is now a quaint Bed and Breakfast (or “BnB”) that sits within Buffalo’s vibrant Elmwood Village. It was as typical a BnB as you could expect…
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As a kid who grew up in the 90s – between the US and Australia – I was gifted with a potpourri of ever-evolving options to celebrate a birthday with friends. Since the 1970s, there’s been all-you-can-eat pizza places with arcades and playhouses, from Pizza Hut to Chuck-E-Cheese. In the mid-1980s, laser tag entered the…
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I’ll never forget when I was in New York about a decade ago (July 2015). I was having dinner at the house of a friend from high school, whose husband was a notable Broadway producer. As one would expect, recommendations of shows to see flowed. The Book of Mormon and Matilda were among the hot…
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If you’ve ever been looking for that storybook Halloween experience, look no further than New York State and New England in the northeast of the United States. With picture perfect communities pulled straight from the movies, the day of trick-or-treating is filled with incredible costumes, houses that go all out with decorations, and a seemingly…
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Though you wouldn’t immediately think of Las Vegas for its museums and galleries, the city has its fair share of high quality attractions scattered around the city. And it’s a surprising mix – who would have thought, for instance, that The Punk Rock Museum would find a home in Nevada? While some are temporary or…
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Earlier this year I had the opportunity to enjoy an incredible night at the Californian tiki bar Strong Water. Just a stones throw from Disneyland in Anaheim – where so much of the modern tiki bar aesthetic was popularised – this James Beard Award semi-finalist is now one of the hottest destinations in the city….
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For decades now, Cirque du Soleil has been the king of the Las Vegas strip – producing almost a dozen residency shows for the city since 1993, with close to 10,000 people witnessing the Montreal company’s spectacle every night. Residency shows are typically designed for the destination, usually in a room custom built for the…
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Last month I was lucky enough to visit Buffalo, New York for the first time since 2019. A lot has changed in this city since my last visit, but today I want to talk about a restaurant that opened up in August 2023 – Southern Junction. From the outside it looks like a typical Texan…
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While Australia has only ever enjoyed Cirque du Soleil in its traditional touring format (usually in their “Grand Chapiteau” tent – as Luzia will be later this year in Brisbane and Sydney), over the years, select destinations around the world have come to enjoy permanent Cirque residencies. Las Vegas is famed to host the majority…
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Vampire Weekend performed what they pronounced was their largest ever headline show ever in Canada tonight at the Budweiser Stage in Toronto, Canada, as part of the Only God Was Above Us tour. For the occasion, across a two and a half hour show, the New York band performed the OG version of their Contra…
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Debuting in October 2019, The Hoxton Downtown Los Angeles sits as one of 16 Hoxton properties around the world. With locations in Edinburgh and Florence coming later this year, and Melbourne and Oslo due in 2027 – making the boutique chain’s Australian and Scandinavian debuts, respectively – it’s a brand you’re bound to encounter soon…
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It’s been a massive weekend of announcements for Disney, thanks to their annual fan event D23 taking place in Anaheim, California. And this year may have seen more announcements for their theme parks around the world than ever before. Some attractions were long rumoured, like the Indiana Jones attraction at Animal Kingdom, or even semi-confirmed…
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I’ve been lucky enough to see the Foo Fighters a couple of times in Los Angeles over the years. First was in 2006 at The Pantages, in the shows that wound up on their CD/DVD release Skin and Bones. And then in 2018 at the second (and presumably final) year of their Cal Jam Festival. The…
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It’s always wonderful to see Australian artists getting the recognition they deserve overseas. But rarely do you expect to see Australian musicians featured in a museum in the USA. However, when The Punk Rock Museum opened in Las Vegas last April, three Australian punk bands saw themselves featured alongside the legends of the genre. Founded…
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Opening on the Upper Lot of Universal Studios Hollywood earlier in the year, the new Power Up Cafe is a companion to Super Nintendo World in the theme park’s lower lot. The “cafe” sits in the New York strip, taking inspiration from the “real life” Mario universe you saw featured in the billion-dollar making Super…
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When you think about where to get yourself some great Chinese dumplings and Dim Sum, it’s fair to say that the American desert doesn’t immediately come to mind. Nonetheless, Las Vegas in Nevada proves to hold a secret treasure trove of some of the best dumplings in North America, with plenty of options on the…
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As long as I can remember I’ve wanted to stay at the Disneyland Hotel. I was lucky enough to frequent the park as a kid, but never got to stay in the iconic hotel that expanded on the experience of visiting on the park. That was until earlier this year. So what is it like…
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Over the last year and a half, Canada’s Porter Airlines has been rapidly expanding its services, debuting a wide variety of new routes on the brand new Embraer E195-E2 aircraft. They started flying those jets (the first in North America to do so) in February of last year. Up until that debut, the airline had…
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With the the launch of the hi-tech Sphere and a multitude of modern new experiences in Las Vegas, it may seem that the classic “Las Vegas Residency” isn’t getting the attention it once did. But the reality is, more major artists are performing in the city than ever before, each bringing in tens of millions…
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