
2026
The Best Summer
2026
The Best Summer
Rediscovered Hi8 footage drops us straight into 1995, backstage at Australia’s Summersault tour with Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Bikini Kill, Pavement, Beck and more. Tamra Davis’s camcorder captures the music, fashion and unguarded energy of an alternative culture in full flight.
Shaggy hair, baggy clothes, wraparound sunglasses and glorious low-fi Hi8 video. The Best Summer drops us straight into 1995, backstage at Australia’s Summersault tour with Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Bikini Kill, Pavement, Beck and a fledgling Foo Fighters. Billy Madison (1995) director Tamra Davis was travelling with then-husband Mike D of Beastie Boys when she turned her camcorder on the musicians around her, capturing performances, conversations, downtime and the chaos in between. Rediscovered three decades later, the footage retains the loose intimacy of a home movie and the thrill of being somewhere you shouldn’t. With no contemporary talking heads interrupting the journey, Davis immerses us in an alternative music culture before smartphones, social media and everyone knowing where the camera is - when some of the era’s defining artists were still young enough to simply hang out together.
