On tour with the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth and Foo Fighters: raw music documentary captures Australia’s ‘best summer’

In 1995, US film-maker Tamra Davis travelled to Australia to capture the one-off Summersault tour on her camcorder. Thirty years on she has made The Best Summer, an intimate snapshot of an era that can never be repeated There are only a few shots in Tamra Davis’ documentary The Best Summer that were filmed this century. They’re the very first ones: shaky footage of a clattering box of videotapes being loaded hurriedly into a car boot as Davis evacuated her home in Malibu during the Palisades ...

By Caitlin Welsh