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Jack Johnson Plots 2026 Australia/New Zealand Run With Ben Harper and John Butler
Jack Johnson returns to Australia and New Zealand in November 2026 with Ben Harper and John Butler, framing a six-date run around his new SURFILMUSIC soundtrack and documentary era.
Jack Johnson is heading back to Australia and New Zealand this November with a six-date run tied to his upcoming SURFILMUSIC project, and the guest list gives the tour real weight: Ben Harper and John Butler will join as solo acoustic special guests.
The tour opens Nov. 7 at Brisbane’s Riverstage, then moves through Perth’s Kings Park & Botanic Gardens (Nov. 10), Sydney’s The Domain (Nov. 14), Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl (Nov. 17), Auckland’s Spark Arena (Nov. 20), and wraps Nov. 22 at Waipara Winehouse in North Canterbury. Artist presales run May 7-8, a Mastercard presale follows May 8-12, and general sales begin May 12 at 2 p.m. local time.
This is Johnson’s first trip back to the region since 2022, but the bigger context is the rollout around SURFILMUSIC, a documentary soundtrack he composed with Hermanos Gutiérrez, due May 15. The film premiered at SXSW in March and revisits his path from North Shore surf kid to filmmaker to one of the defining singer-songwriters of the early 2000s, with scenes anchored in the making of Thicker Than Water (1999) and The September Sessions (2000).
Onstage, Johnson is expected to perform with longtime bandmates Adam Topol, Merlo Podlewski, and Zach Gill, mixing core catalog tracks like “Better Together,” “Flake,” “Inaudible Melodies,” “Taylor,” and “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing” with newer soundtrack material. That combination matters: this tour reads less like a nostalgia lap and more like a bridge between the surf-film era that built his audience and the quieter, reflective phase of his current work.
The Harper-Butler pairing is the key move here. Harper, now three Grammys deep with 18 studio albums and a catalog that runs from “Burn One Down” to “Diamonds on the Inside,” brings a U.S. roots legacy that overlaps with Johnson’s audience but sits rougher at the edges. Butler, meanwhile, remains one of Australia’s most durable independent success stories, with more than two decades of touring muscle behind songs like “Zebra,” “Better Than,” and “Ocean.” Put together, the lineup leans heavily into musicians who built long careers outside trend cycles and radio churn.
There’s also a local dimension: Indigenous artist Emily Wurramara joins the Sydney date only. Australian shows are presented by Live Nation in partnership with Double J.
Johnson’s broader career numbers are familiar by now, but still notable in this context: more than 25 million albums sold across eight studio records, and over $40 million directed since 2001 to environmental, arts, and music education causes through the Kōkua Hawaiʻi Foundation and the Johnson ʻOhana Foundation, which he co-founded with his wife, Kim. For an artist often flattened into “beach-folk” shorthand, this run is a reminder that his project has always been bigger than mood music.
Tour dates: Nov. 7 Brisbane (Riverstage); Nov. 10 Perth (Kings Park & Botanic Gardens); Nov. 14 Sydney (The Domain); Nov. 17 Melbourne (Sidney Myer Music Bowl); Nov. 20 Auckland (Spark Arena); Nov. 22 North Canterbury (Waipara Winehouse).
