THERE is something beautifully fitting about the fact Bachelor Girl are touring Waiting for the Day more than two decades after it first exploded into Australian music culture.
For Tania Doko, the frontwoman whose unmistakable voice helped soundtrack late-90s Australia, the return is not about reliving the past, it is about rediscovering it.
“Now we can actually enjoy the process,” Doko said.
“Back then, you’re just in it. Now the songs have lived out in the world for decades and people have embraced them in such a big way.”
That embrace continues today as Bachelor Girl prepare to bring their Waiting for the Day: REDUX Tour 2026 to Brisbane, revisiting the album that launched the duo into Australian music history.
For many Australians, Bachelor Girl’s legacy begins and ends with Buses and Trains, the bittersweet anthem that became one of the defining Australian songs of the 90s.
Yet Doko laughs at the idea anyone could have predicted what the song would become.
“You never know,” she said.
“You can have a good feeling at best, but you can never afford to be cocky in life or in this business.”
After Bachelor Girl originally split in the early 2000s, Doko stepped away from the spotlight, relocating to Sweden, where she spent years writing, mentoring artists and rediscovering her relationship with music away from the pressures of celebrity.
“That break was vital,” she said. “It’s why I can still be in Bachelor Girl now.”
When Bachelor Girl reunited years later for a performance at the Sydney Opera House, Doko realised something unexpected had happened while she was away – the songs had become timeless.
“The whole crowd was going bananas for it (Buses & Trains),” she said. “That’s when I realised nostalgia had become this huge thing.”
But the current REDUX project is not merely nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, with Bachelor Girl rebuilding the songs from the ground up with new arrangements, cinematic textures and collaborations featuring some of Australia’s biggest artists.
Doko describes the project as a “bucket list” collaboration album, revealing artists like Jessica Mauboy, Darren Hayes, Ella Hooper and Tommy Emmanuel all feature across the release.
More than 25 years after Buses and Trains, the duo continue to evolve without losing the emotional honesty that made audiences fall in love with them in the first place.
Bachelor Girl play The Triffid on August 23 with tickets available through the venue website.
