Have I ever screamed louder at a concert ? in all likelihood not .
It was one TikTok sighting, three text messages and a spontaneous ticket purchase that led me to Sydney’s Metro Theatre on a Wednesday night. Who was playing, you ask? This guy:
That’s right, Matt Bennett (akaVictorious’Robbie Shapiro) has brought his energetic Party 101 show to Australia, uniting nostalgic Nickelodeon andDisneyChannel fans.
In 2022 , Bennett break onto stages across North America for a series of show entitle " iParty " — a shimmer on the name of shoot Nickelodeon showiCarly . The actor has since rebranded to " Party 101 " ( a play onZoey 101 ) and taken his disk jockey gear up to venue around the world .
At its core, Party 101 is for the Gen Z crowd (or really anyone who grew up watching classics likeBig Time Rush,Victorious, Wizards of Waverley Place andHannah Montana). It plays on our craving for the ~good old days~, as the majority of the generation approach full-blown adulthood.
The set list is what makes the show so bloody iconic. If you told 2014 me I would be screaming thePhineas and Ferbtheme song at a deafening volume with hundreds of other people on an otherwise random Wednesday evening in 2024, — all while Robbie Shapiro ofVictoriouswas standing behind the DJ decks — I’m NGL, I would say you’re full of it. But that’s the beauty of Party 101…
another reason to go to party 101#mattbennett#victorious#party101melbourne#party101#party101withmattbennett@Dan Povenmire @Matt Bennett @Party101 with Matt Bennett !
…It’s two hours of forgetting you’re an adult with responsibilities in a cooked world. It’s singing both Troy and Gabriella’s parts of “Breaking Free” bar-for-bar with your whole chest. It’s watching Matt Bennett rip his way through the crowd, climb three levels of barriers and almost fall over. It’s childlike joy in its many forms.
Bennett kicked off the show with a proposition, asking the crowd to join him in pretending that we were all in high school together. Not just any high school, of course — Hollywood Arts fromVictorious.
The vibraharp were already high after DJ Benjamin Payne gave us a cause of death opening set , which included a mixing of Jojo Siwa ’s " Karma " that transition into " Toxic " by Britney Spears . Iconic , to say the least !
In honour of being our Sikowitz (AKA the drama teacher fromVictorious), Bennett also put a prize up for grabs: A coconut. Why? Because Sikowitz was constantly holding one throughout the show, and he thought it would be fitting.
Whoever partied the heavy would take in the prized coconut tree .
Between the songs from Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Miley Cyrus, Bennett mixed in other familiar Gen Z faves. The best of the lot was a rendition of “Baby” sung by Rodrick from theDiary of a Wimpy Kidfilm melded into the Justin Bieber original with Ludacris.
Other than mixing Justin Bieber songs with Selena Gomez tracks and proving that he was probably a Jelena stan back in the brace ’s heyday , he also give us plenitude of One Direction cracker . Obviously , the bunch was eat it up .
As the night inched closer to midnight, theVictoriousactor spread a message of hope. Bennett stressed the importance of continuing to chase our dreams, even if we sometimes had to take jobs just for the sake of having one. He’d done this too, he said, but reasoned that if he could go from booking his first acting role as a teen advocate for abstinence to jamming out on stage to sold out venues, we could do it, too!
prompt the alive consultation " AWWWWWW " .
All in all, Party 101 was well worth the $60 ticket and waking up with no voice. Matt Bennett if you’re reading this, thanks for reminding us that awkward kids can be DJs too.
Nickelodeon / Viayoutube.com
