5 Seconds of Summer are fifteen minutes late on stage. They’ve been a little late every show of this tour so far, and maybe that’s deliberate, to feed into the rock star bit in some meta way, but it’s probably just a coincidence. They’re squashed into the back seat of a car, pouring tea from a Union Jack-printed teapot as they launch into the first verse of ‘NOT OK’, but before the track starts, a skit plays, claiming this would be their last show ever, here at The O2, happening at the band’s absolute peak.

Neither of those things is true; this is only the first leg of another lengthy world tour, and, depending on your definition of peaking culturally, this likely isn’t it for 5SOS. But it doesn’t matter. Because the ‘EVERYONE’S A STAR!’ tour is, as frontman Luke Hemmings says during the show, their biggest and best tour yet.

It’s also about living your own fantasy. Throughout the night, they reminisce on being the biggest boyband in the world, win an award for Best Boyband in the World, and document their peak, fall, breakup, rise and return via a series of on-and-off-stage skits. It all plays out like the This Is Spinal Tap of boybands, anchored by the band’s impressively deadpan Australian humour, with the setlist functioning like that of a jukebox musical.

Tracks from their latest album are particularly explosive (literally, in ‘NOT OK’s case, with the confetti canons opening the show), ‘No. 1 Obsession’ and ‘Boyband’ feel integral to the show’s story, but so do earlier tracks like ‘No Shame’ from 2020’s ‘CALM’, with its themes of desperation for fame (or rather, infamy).

In the second half, they play on the idea that the group ‘broke up’ while they each made a solo record, with the members rotating around the massive extended stage to perform a solo track each (it’s very K-Pop concert-coded). It’s a fun change of pace, but they’re strongest united.

It’s funny to see 5SOS mythologise their story in such a way, because it’s such an odd one anyway. They launched to mass hysteria and hatred equally (an era they’ve undoubtedly reclaimed), had their biggest hits while playing their smallest venues (tonight’s closer ‘Youngblood’ comes from an album toured in academies versus arenas), and they never really had a flop era to come back from. Still, ‘EVERYONE’S A STAR!’ The Tour feels like an insight into how the pop machine feels when you’ve spent your life as a cog in it.

“We get a little bored of the same old rock show, same old play of our songs, and do a fake encore and see you later,” said drummer Ashton Irwin in our last interview with the boys. “We wanted more of a narrative, more of an explosive, creative, identifiable way of putting on shows.” It’s a statement true of both their last visit to this venue for The 5 Seconds of Summer Show as it is this tour; it’s a show as unique as their story. As the band return for the encore, walking from the back of the standing crowd to the stage, hands grabbing at their clothes and cameras flashing in their faces, it’s the sort of on-the-nose life-imitates-art moment that makes their opening skit feel, actually, a bit true.

Everyone's a star in 5SOS' arena-sized pop satire

Warehouse bangers and future stars: A Stone’s Throw 2026 hits its stride

Dot To Dot turns Bristol and Nottingham into the beating heart of new music

Slam Dunk's 20th anniversary celebrates the bands who built it

From Piss to Adult DVD: the sets we couldn’t stop talking about at The Great Escape

Shame turn Brighton beach into a sweat-soaked riot at Dork’s Great Escape takeover

Is folk music cool again? Little Grandad, Madra Salach and Westside Cowboy make the case at The Great Escape

Montreal meets London in a chaotic Monday night at The Grace

Haute & Freddy’s theatrical Bush Hall show feels like a cult classic in the making