The 80s provided us with plenty of iconic things – shell suits, leg warmers, neon... everything. Really, we sort of peaked with 80s culture. Smack bang in the middle of all the colourful goings on was Freddie Mercury who graced stages with his enchanting presence, sequinned leotards, and absolute rockstar flamboyance. Now his glorious garms are heading to London’s V&A.

Eight of the singer’s spectacular outfits are set to go on display at the V&A South Kensington from October 24th, all part of the celebrations on what would be his 80th birthday. To make the celebrations even better, the exhibition will be free to visit.

Called Freddie Mercury | Splendid Things, the exhibition has been curated by the V&A and Mary Austin – a close friend and former fiancee of Mercury. The exhibition’s name comes from a remark he made in 1978, where he said ‘I like to be surrounded by splendid things. I want to lead a Victorian life surrounded by exquisite clutter.’

Whilst the Queen singer might be best known for his yellow leather jacket, other unforgettable fits include flowing kimonos, a banana hat crown, slinky dresses, chequered jumpsuits, and whatever that red eye covered singlet was.

Presented as a walkthrough trail at the museum, it celebrates Mercury’s career through costumes and accessories worn in some of the most memorable music videos and performances of modern times. The trail will walk visitors through Freddie’s career, from his early days performing at small, student venues, to some of his biggest gigs and solo performances. On the trail you’ll find six different stops each complete with a full Freddie 'fit alongside a theatrical installation – think lights, sets, sound – which will help bring each look to life.

Obviously, all the outfits Freddie wore were pretty dazzling, but luckily we do know which ones will be included as part of the exhibition. The outfits include the Mercury Wing catsuit he wore for the Night At the Opera tour and Bohemian Rhapsody music video, and that regal fit – complete with the opulent crown and cloak – he wore on the Magic tour and during his final stage appearance with Queen at Knebworth in 1986. What’s an outfit without accessories? Incomplete, quite frankly. Which is probably why there will be an array of accessories from the star’s personal collection alongside the outfits.

Freddie Mercury | Splendid Things will be on at the V&A South Kensington from 24th October 2026 to 17th January 2027.

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Last year, Outbreak festival had its first London edition, held in association with LIDO. In 2026 it was All Points East’s turn, bringing a day of rock and alternative to a multi-day line-up otherwise largely dominated by pop and hip-hop.

Guitar bands are still alive and well, though. And not just the headline stars like Deftones — who to be fair are as vital and current now as they have been in decades. What a feat.

We spent the whole day marching between stages (and inhaling a lot more dust than would be recommended under WHO guidelines) in order to bring you some of our favourite picks.

Here are our top 5 stars from Outbreak x All Points East, spanning the big names and some newer faces you may not have encountered yet...

Idles

How do they keep it up? Almost a decade on from their first album, Idles sound as aggressively potent and vibrant as ever. While 2024 album Tangk brought out a somewhat softer side of the band’s sound, the snarl singer Joe Talbot is known for is still present and correct in Idles’ live performance. The day’s highest-energy performance? Perhaps so.

Interpol

Interpol have a new album out this week, This Mirror Weighs a Ton. Early released tracks suggest we’re getting a more atmospheric and airy sound, from a band whose best-known songs trade in edgy pneumatic guitar lines. Saying that, recent single See Out Loud slots into tracks from the band’s first two celebrated albums just fine. It’s those tracks that bring a bit of punctation to a performance that doesn’t even try to bring the bombast of the Amyl and the Sniffers and JPEGMAFIA sets that bookend Interpol’s slot. Check out the new album from 28th August.

Wisp

Apparently shoegaze goes down well on TikTok? Who knew. Wisp’s Your Face was a social media hit back in 2023 — a song that was reportedly built off a licensed backing track rather than composed by Wisp from scratch, but it has launched her into a more substantial music career. That she has covered Coldplay’s Yellow shows this is an entirely new school, new generation of interpretation of shoegaze from, say, My Bloody Valentine, but the band built around Wisp sure do sound great. She also wins the award for the day’s most polite act.

Good Health Good Wealth

In the slot that should — according to the festival timetable — have given us Liam Gallagher son Gene Gallagher’s Villanelle, we got Good Health Good Wealth. And they are almost undeniably a lot more fun. There’s an anachronistic charm to this twosome I’m going lean on the lazy habit of comparison to relay. If you took The Streets, but gave the front man some added Suggs’s cheekiness and layered in some Damon Albarn nonchalance, you’re about there. Sure enough, the group supported The Streets’ 2026 tour. Witty spoken word storytelling.

Deftones

We are in a different era of Deftones to those who may have fond — not to mention ancient — memories of the band’s first three albums. Huge backdrop visuals and the more alt-slash-shoegaze leanings of the band’s Private Music album make for an atmospheric watch — more groove than slam in this Deftones sound. Sadly, we didn’t get to see Stephen Carpenter, who for the last few years has not toured internationally with the band following health issues. But Chino? He’s looking trimmer and more spritely than he has in a long time.

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All Points East’s second day of 2026 one-day festivals may appear to be all about Lorde from the poster, but it was more of a "state of play" of modern pop.

The line-up was packed with powerhouse women of music — oh, plus that guy from Stranger Things, with Djo.

All Points East’s healthy stage separation, both geographically and with set times, mean there were no big problems with sound leakage. In the trade-off, you do spend what feels like half the time in a dusty river of people trudging from one end of the festival site to the other.

But the only real issue? PinkPantheress’s oversubscribed tent set filled up so fast, fans would have had to cut short their watch of collaborator Zara Larsson to have a chance of getting a look in. No doubt this left many grudgingly watching Djo, waiting for him to play “that song” ahead of Lorde’s headliner slot.

But this day was all about the women of pop. Here are five of our highlights.

Zara Larsson

A brief holiday from the seemingly ever expanding badness of the world, watching Zara Larsson is a bit like that feeling of getting off the plane and Balearic sun hitting your face. She has the songs, the moves, the voice and a festival stage setup more like that of a dedicated tour than a festival slot. Larsson may not have been the official headliner of ATP but it's clear that a good chunk of the audience considered her just that. Her set also gave us what would turn out to be our one chance to see PinkPantheress, who joined the stage for the pair’s collab single Stateside.

Lorde

We got to witness a similar version of Lorde's festival set earlier this year one afternoon at Mad Cool 2026 in Madrid. But it makes a whole lot more sense as a UK headliner spot. With the sun having set, her jacket dotted with lasers firing out into the night and her stark pvc costume hit in a way they just could not in searing Spanish sunlight. Her stage show is concert meets art installation, her face at times smushed against glass and fired up onto the huge display screens. Lorde is a moody, dark and more complex counterpoint to the technicolour of Zara Larsson. And it's a contrast that works.

Rose Gray

Rose Gray has some of the most banging songs of the entire festival. It's not often you get an established act of this quality this early in the day. Her dynamic dance-pop is crowd-moving stuff, and her Madonna inspiration comes out in her live presence and performance more so even than on record. Gray is a local, of course, having grown up down the road in Walthamstow, and her set is laced with sections from her song Hackney Wick — which references Victoria Park directly. It’s a hometown gig, basically. Final track Party People is the perfect end of a set that primes you for a day at a London music festival.

Audrey Hobert

You’ve possibly only encountered Audrey Hobert through nasty social media discourse in recent times — yet more fuel for the argument maybe the internet was a bad idea in the first place. But she provides All Points East with easily digestible slices of guitar-led indie pop, with bouncy and super-catchy songs. It's only some guitar distortion and more aggressive drums away from 2000s pop-punk, and we're here for it.

Sienna Spiro

The latter half of Sienna Spiro’s performance saw a good chunk of the crowd make the festival’s site-long exodus to secure a spot for Zara Larsson. But even a few songs are enough to school you in “what all the fuss is about” surrounding Sienna Spiro. No, she doesn’t have the most subtle or original sound, bearing clear hallmarks of the Amy-Winehouse-slash-Adele successor she’s been hailed as. In the context of a festival set, though, it’s easier than ever not to overthink things, and just enjoy her outsize, earnest and emotional vocal delivery.

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You might celebrate your birthday with flowers, drinks, bunting, and an obligatory Colin the Caterpillar cake. London however tends to do things a little differently. For its own celebratory shindig marking 20 years of glorious gigs, London’s O2 is putting on quite the show, and we’re all invited.

Jorja Smith has been announced as the latest artist performing at the venue as part of the celebrations. The singer songwriter and two-time Brit Award winner will be taking to the stage on July 17th in 2027 sharing some of her most beloved and brilliant tunes.

The London venue originally opened up as the Millennium Dome back in December 1999 before opening as the O2 Arena in 2007. To mark 20 years since it rebranded and reopened its (security checked) doors, there will be a series of gigs held at the space, with plenty of performers gracing the legendary stage.

Other acts already announced include Maisie Peters, Don Omar, and Shreya Ghoshal who are performing across May, June, and July. Maisie will be kicking things off on 8th May having released her third studio album Fluorescence earlier this year, and will be performing at Reading and Leeds this weekend.

Talking about the upcoming gig, Jorja said: “Performing at The O2 as part of its 20th birthday celebrations is a huge honour,” she shared. “It’s a venue that has hosted so many incredible artists and unforgettable moments over the years, so to be part of this milestone feels really special. I’m excited to celebrate with you all.” It will be Jorja's only UK arena performance of 2027, so a good one to have your eye on.

General tickets go on sale on Friday August 28 at 10am. There are also Priority Tickets available exclusively to O2 and Virgin Media broadband customers via the Priority app from 10am on Wednesday (August 26).

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Even if you didn’t go anywhere near the hit Netflix film Kpop Demon Hunters, you will inevitably have found yourself humming one of its main songs, Golden, at some point or the other. It was a tune so catchy, part of me joined the ranks of conspiracy theorists believing it to be some kind of guerilla psychological marketing ploy. Turns out it was less maniacal deviance and more musical genius. Now, some of the voices behind the hit characters are coming to London for a special one-off gig.

The Saja Boys are heading to the capital for a UK first in a live performance in the heart of the city. Andrew Choi and Neckwav – who play Jinu and Abby in the global hit – will play a one-off gig at Outernet Live in London next month.

On 6th September the actors/singers will be heading to Tottenham Court Road’s rather high tech immersive exhibition space, which has already hosted a slew of other musical tributes, most recently an homage to Madonna for her birthday. Fans will be able to gather to watch the on screen stars perform irl bringing some of the show’s most beloved songs to life.

“We’re incredibly excited to be sharing the stage during our first-ever performance in London,” said Choi. “The connection everyone has built with the film’s characters has been beyond anything we could have imagined and seeing our U.K. fans embrace the music makes this an even more meaningful celebration.”

Neckwav (real name Kyung Jay Minn) added: “It is an honour to bring my voice as Neckwav, and the singing voice behind Abby Saja, to life at Outernet Live. The love and support from our U.K. fans has been amazing and having the chance to finally meet and perform for them in person makes this moment so special. This will be a night to remember!”

The film featured two fictional bands: Huntr/x, whose singing voices were provided by Ejae (as Rumi), Audrey Nuna (as Mira), and Rei Aami (as Zoey) and the Saja Boys, made up of Choi, Neckwav, Kevin Woo, Samuil Lee and Danny Chung.

This isn’t the only experiential K-pop Demon Hunters musical gig taking place, as back in May, Netflix announced a new global tour which would bring some of the show’s best tunes into a live concert experience for fans, similar to a standard solo artist’s tour. However, we haven’t yet had any further confirmation about who exactly from the film’s various bands and singers will be featuring on the tour, nor where and when it will take place.

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Totes emosh singer-songwriter Noah Kahan has announced a new tour leg that includes just one date in England, but it’s a biggie.

On 23rd July next year, 2027, Noah Kahan will play at the 90,000 capacity Wembley Stadium in London.

It’s comfortably the biggest UK gig of his career, with previous highlights including a two-day stint at the 20,000 capacity The O2 Arena in 2024.

This concert is part of a three date UK and Ireland tour leg, for his The Last of the Bugs world tour series. Here’s the full list of dates:

• 13th July – Glasgow, Hampden Park
• 17th July – Dublin, Aviva Stadium
• 23rd July – London, Wembley Stadium

Tickets for these 2027 shows go on sale at 10am next week on 28th August, while there’s a pre-sale period from 25th August. You have until 5pm on 24th August to sign up for this “artist presale,” accessible from Noah Kahan’s website.

You just need to add your phone number to get an early access code.

There’s no need to wait all that time to see Noah Kahan live in London, though — if you’re willing to put a bit of effort in anyway.

He’s set to play three nights at The O2 Arena, on 13th, 14th and 17th November this year. All three dates are sold out already, but you can always try your luck at one of the non-ripoff resale portals.

Shortlist go-to picks include Twickets, Tixel, Ticketswap and Ticketmaster’s own resale platform (yes, it's surprisingly not dreadful).

Kahan’s current tour is in support of this The Great Divide album, while The Last Of The Bugs edition was a deluxe version released just after the original, adding four new tracks.

This is the first of Wembley Stadium’s 2027 music concerts to be announced. In 2026 it was host to gigs from The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, My Chemical Romance and others, while Bon Jovi are still to play the stadium in 2026, on 4th, 6th and 9th September.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

The K-Music festival has revealed its programme of events for 2026: a celebration of Korean music that will take over some of London’s top venues from late September to November.

Unlike most other London music festivals, this K-Music one is spread across dates and venues, a looser collection of concerts rather than a one-shot hit of acts. But you do get a full line-up of acts on the opening night, which lands on 28th September.

This takes place at EartH in Hackney, and features Lil Cherry & Goldbuuda, Chang Kiha and ADG7. Tickets are a mere £21.94 including all fees, from DICE.

The concept behind the festival is to celebrate Korean music beyond K-pop, which is of course already massively popular.

Here’s the full list of events at the K-Music festival, now in its 13th year, after the opening night concert.

3rd October - Wind Alone, Sand Alone at Stone Nest in Soho

• How much? £20
• What is it? “Immersive sonic theatre” from a six-piece of musicians from Korea and France.

11th October - Korean Games in Concert at the Southbank Centre

• How much? From £17 (adult tickets)
• What is it? Video game music played in part using traditional Korean instruments. Some of the most famous titles on the list include Black Desert and Lies of P.

17th October - Chudahye Chagis at Rich Mix

• How much? £20.34
• What is it? A genre-mashing group from Seoul.

29th October - Kyungso Park + Björn Meyer at Royal Albert Hall

• How much? £20
• What is it? A performance by Kyungso Park, who plays traditional stringed Korean instrument the gayageum, alongside bassist Björn Meyer.

11th November - Dongyang Gozopa at Rich Mix

• How much? £20.50
• What is it? A three-piece band who combine western genres with Korean musical influences. Trippy stuff.

23rd November - Jisu Jung’s Baroque in Blue at Upstair’s at Ronnie’s

• How much? From £33.50
• What is it? An interpretation of Charlie Parker’s Baroque in Blue arranged for a classical ensemble by composer and pianist Jisu Jung.

Shortlist has put together an epic Punk retrospective as the snarling genre hits a milestone 50th anniversary, looking back at interviews with Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, as well as chatting to fans young and old about their favourite memories. And it’s not just us getting a little nostalgic and dusting off our leather jackets — London is getting a brand new festival which is all about the women who changed the punk scene, including a pretty cool reunion.

Called God Save the Queens, the festival is taking to the capital in October and November with gigs, talks, screenings, and workshops all celebrating the female rockers and all-out legends who made the genre what it is. The inaugural festival comes fifty years after legendary punk pioneer Poly Styrene and a generation of women helped shape punk's music, art and identity.

The festival will bring together a landmark exhibition, a one-night-only reunion performance, talks, and the release of previously unheard recordings by Poly Styrene, who passed away in 2011.

Whilst the celebration has already been teased with a punk takeover of summer’s Everyman on the Canal back in July, the events keep unfolding across Autumn 2026. The festival’s centrepiece is a standout gig at Electric Brixton on Friday 16th October that will see the formation of God Save The Queens, a unique supergroup bringing together leading musicians from across generations. The 75-minute performance will reimagine the Poly Styrene playlist alongside iconic she-punk anthems.

The headline performance will feature an historic X-Ray Spex reunion, with original members Lora Logic and Paul Dean returning to the stage alongside Celeste Bell, daughter of Poly Styrene, performing her mother’s songs and honouring her extraordinary legacy.

On 12th September Bell will also be running an exclusive talk at the V&A, exploring the radical legacy of her mother Poly Styrene. On September 18th, the festival takes over the Saatchi Gallery which will host A Night of T/Reason featuring Lauren Estelle Jones and Celeste Bell as panellists.

Moving onto 19th October, the festival will be camping out at the British Library for a flagship panel discussion on the enduring multi-generational impact of women in alternative and DIY music culture. Bringing together original ’77 punk pioneers, contemporary artists, and leading cultural scholars, it will explore how female creativity continues to challenge the mainstream and rewrite the rules of artistic independence.

Music and art icons contributing to the festival include X-Ray Spex saxophonist Lora Logic, fashion designer Dame Zandra Rhodes, The Specials collaborator and The Bodysnatchers lead singer Rhoda Dakar, The Raincoats founder Gina Birch, visual artists Caroline Coon, Linder and Sue Webster, BBC Radio 6 Music DJ, The Slits manager, and The Clash music video director Don Letts and Big Joanie. Also contributing to the landmark event are The Sex Pistols’ official photographer Ray Stevenson, The Slits members Tessa Pollitt and Hollie Cook, and cult fashion brand BOY London.

You can find out more information about the festival and its events including booking tickets via the website.

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In October, a Queen concert film is getting a release in cinemas, including IMAX, but it will also have a special one-day-only screening at London’s Roundhouse.

Queen Budapest will be shown at the popular gig venue on 3rd October, a few days ahead of its cinema release on 7th October.

There will be two screenings on that day, one at 2pm, another at 7pm. And the pitch is it will get you closer to the atmosphere of an actual Queen gig than just watching at a cinema could hope to.

The audience will watch the show standing, with the concert film displayed on a “giant LED screen, with full surround sound [and] synchronised lighting.” You’re welcome to sing along too, a factor we’re less persuaded by.

One vision

Queen Budapest is a filming of the band’s 1986 stadium concert, in which they played in front of 80,000 fans.

The 2026 re-release sees the original film re-scanned and remastered in 4K. It was originally relesed on VHS and laserdisc back in 1987, and on Blu-Ray in 2012.

The concert was from Queen’s last tour, in support of their A Kind of Magic album.

“Peter Jackson’s team have done a magnificent job of restoring the original film footage, at the highest resolution ever; it’s pristine and the quality is breathtaking. I think you’re going to love it. For the sound, we’ve been able to do some top quality restoration work as well,” says Brian May.

And, yes, he’s referring to Peter Jackson of The Lord of the Rings fame — his Park Road production studio is behind the new remaster.

The release is around 90 minutes long, just like the original version. 2012’s re-release was padded out to almost two hours thanks to added documentary segments.

Tickets for the two screenings will be available from the Roundhouse website, while you can sign up for ticket alerts for the cinema release over at the film’s own site.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

In the pantheon of electronic music, few names are held in higher regard than legendary DJ and producer Four Tet.

At 48 years old, there are few feats in the world of club culture that the artist born Kieran Hebden has yet to achieve. His early records made him a critical darling and cult icon. A decade of elite remixes and sprawling, heady LPs in the 2010s made him a mainstay on any DJ’s USB drive. And in 2023, he attained true superstardom as a Coachella headliner alongside protégé Fred Again and dubstep provocateur Skrillex.

To his fans – this writer included – Four Tet has long represented the archetype of "The DJ’s DJ". He’s a truly prolific and proficient artist that has always found a way to merge the sound of the moment with the sound of his mind. In 2022, Hebden would extend his creative and curatorial energy to the first Four Tet All Dayer in London’s Finsbury Park, where it’s been held every year since.

For the fifth annual Four Tet All Dayer, Hebden had recruited pals and peers from across the scene, from certified legends like Ben UFO to underground faves like Aurora Halal and Barker, to play on two stylishly designed and immaculately lit stages. As a long-time Four Tet fan, this was all too tempting to miss – read on for the five best sets from the Four Tet All Dayer 2026.

5. Sofia Kourtesis – Eat Your Own Ears Stage

While Four Tet set the scene for his four hour set, Sofia Kourtesis’ party on the Eat Your Own Ears Stage was well underway. The Berlin-via-Peru DJ and producer sprinted through genres like they were going out of style, playing ghettotech, electro, and disco in breakneck blends.

Kourtesis’ set was more of a selection session than anything else, with some fairly random transitions between tracks, but the mood stayed high as she broke up stretches of obscure trance with the classics. Sometimes, after hours of heady two-step, you just need to hear “Music Sounds Better With You”.

4. Four Tet – Main Stage

Fourth place for Four Tet at this year’s All Dayer. Hebden’s extended headline set was a tour through his own catalogue and leftfield takes on today’s club soundscape, ranging from moments of depth to unbridled bass-heavy chaos. He’s got an uncanny ability to read a crowd; I watched arms fly up from the congregation on the drop of each new tune, as new groups constantly joined the fray, falling in from the pathways and hillsides around.

As ever, Four Tet remains one of the world’s most interesting selectors. He opened with a stretch of heady dubstep, tapping into the genre’s recent resurgence, before tilting into his usual mix of off-kilter tech house and garage. Having such a massive catalogue of original bangers makes Hebden an agile force on the decks, and throughout his set he shelled out edits and remixes of his own tunes – I heard a mashup of ‘Baby’ and ‘Baby Again..’ somewhere in there, fragments of ‘Only Human’ and ‘Anna Painting’, and even individual drum samples that gave away tracks as the artist’s handiwork.

I found myself enjoying Four Tet’s performance more as a listening experience than a dance. Where other DJs on the lineup had a way of calling me to the front-left, I was perfectly content to sprawl out on the dry grass and let Hebden’s tunes find my ears. Whether that’s worth buying a ticket for is up to you.

3. Barker – Main Stage

Techno without drums might sound like blasphemy to devout ravers, but Sam Barker has made a career out of weaving glittering melodies in the absence of the rumbling kicks and lingering dissonance that define the genre. Barker, as he’s mononymously known, played a truly propulsive set at this year’s Four Tet All Dayer, blending elements from various studio recordings with live improvisations from behind a table of synths and controllers.

I’ve been a fan of Barker for years, and hearing the Berlin-based artist build fragmented sequences into towering crescendos with the full power of the Main Stage sound system was truly immersive. I was surprised at how danceable the music turned out to be given the artist’s restraint with percussion – but rules are made to be broken, and Barker’s ambient tones eventually gave way to crowd-shaking bass and irresistible kick patterns.

2. Aurora Halal – Eat Your Own Ears Stage

New York underground staple Aurora Halal closed out the All Dayer’s second stage with 90 minutes of undeniably stylish club tunes. By the time Halal took to the decks, Four Tet was already a half-hour deep into his headline set, meaning those still massed at the Eat Your Own Ears section were committed to the party in motion. A smaller, looser, more hypnotised crowd willing to keep going till the end, so long as the music kept coming.

Handing over from Sofia Kourtesis, Halal understood the assignment and then some, playing a no-frills techno set that took influence from American main-stage EDM and the minimal, groove-focused sounds of continental Europe. The DJ, producer, and promoter mixed techno and tech house fluently, with an emphasis on rolling basslines and cathartic drops.

1. Ben UFO – Main Stage

One of the first unspoken rules you learn in the world of DJing is to not go too hard in the warm-up slot. To the great benefit of everyone at this year’s Four Tet All Dayer, Ben UFO didn’t get the memo.

Ben UFO is one of the UK’s few top-flight DJs to never have released a track of his own. In his fifteen year career he’s focused exclusively on selecting, playing, and mixing records. His set at this year’s All Dayer was a masterclass in the most fundamental of all DJ skills – choosing the right tune for the moment.

As the undercard on the main stage, Ben UFO was tasked with building the crowd’s energy without breaking the wave. What followed was an hours and change of seriously tasteful club music, as the Rinse FM resident and Hessle Audio co-founder mixed four-by-four garage, wobbling bassline, drill edits, techno rollers, and baile funk with mechanical precision.

Every track had a flavour of something new. Every track had phenomenal low-end. Every track just hit. See him when you can.

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Phoebe Bridgers knows how to create hype as well as great music, and, as her long-awaited, highly-anticipated third album is finally dropping this Friday (14th August) she’s throwing a party.

Well, a concert. Same thing, no?

Bringing all the lost boys of North London into one room, Bridgers will be playing at a tiny, intimate show in London next week. And somehow, she has chosen the *most* Phoebe Bridgers venue London possibly has to offer.

The 31 year old singer songwriter will be performing a solo gig at Union Chapel on Monday 17th August just three days after the new album drops. The show will mark the first time Bridgers has performed in London since 2022. As well as a gig at the gorgeous Union Chapel in Highbury, Phoebe will be performing at Circuit in Kingston on the Wednesday (19th), followed by shows in Brighton and Bristol too.

The whole gig is presented by Rough Trade who also recently announced a special release of vinyls which is a total 80s nostalgia fest.

In keeping with recent Phoebe Bridgers gigs across the US, this show will be strictly filming-free, meaning every attendee will be forbidden from recording, having to relinquish any phones, smart-watches, cameras, peculiar glasses, or any other spy-like or tech accoutrements

The official event page says: “Upon arrival at the venue, all phones, smart watches, and accessories will be secured in Yondr pouches that will be opened at the end of the event. Guests maintain possession of their belongings at all times and can access their phones throughout the event at designated Phone Use Areas in the venue. All phones will be re-secured in Yondr pouches before returning to the event space.”

If you want to get your hands on tickets, you best be speedy; tickets go on sale on 13th August at 10am, and there will be two shows on the day – one matinee with doors at 4pm, and another main show that kicks off later at 7.30pm. It looks as though each gig will last around 45 minutes according to the event page. Each ticket also gives you access to a copy of the new album Lost Weekend on CD which you can pick up either from the venue or from the Rough Trade East store.

The tickets will be going on sale via DICE so head to the website to get your bearings ahead of the fan-crazed rush tomorrow, and even set an alarm online so you don't forget.

If you don’t manage to catch Phoebe’s performances next week, you might be lucky enough to see her shows at the O2 in December later this year — they're a touch bigger, with the O2 playing host to 20,000 fans.

Ariana Grande’s run of shows at The O2 begins on 15th August and runs until the beginning of September.

It’s a major mini residency for a singer who, well, may not be seen back on stage performing in London for some time after this. She’s taking a break from the spotlight as soon as her schedule allows.

Have a ticket for an Ariana Grande The O2 show or hoping to get one? Here’ what you need to know before you head out.

1. Queueing starts at 10am

This one is a heads-up for the mega fans out there. You’ll only be allowed to queue for admission from 10am — which is 8.5 hours from the opening of doors at the venue at 6:30pm. There’s really no need to get there anywhere near that early if you have an allocated seat, short of wanting to soak up the pure vibes, though.

2. Bags have to be tiny and made of clear plastic

Sure to trip up a few concert-goers, there’s a very strict bag policy for these shows. They can only measure 30 x 15 x 30cm, and must be clear plastic. That typical rule of an A4-size rucksack doesn’t cut it here, and it’s not hard to understand why when the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017 took place at one of her concerts.

3. The support act (there isn’t one)

Wondering who will be out to support Ariana Grande this time? There is no support act at all, further reducing the need to get there super-early. But the show itself is a multi-act extravaganza.

4. Stage Times: Ariana is expected on stage at 8:10pm

Doors for the Ariana Grande: The O2 gigs are at 6:30pm, with then a roughly 90-minute empty interlude until she’s expected on stage between 8pm and 8:10pm.

The show should be finished by 10pm. You can expect healthy queues for the tube station if you stay to the very end.

5. Last-minute tickets

These Ariana Grande shows are unfortunately in high enough demand that you are not going to be able to snag a bargain last-minute ticket. All the shows are sold out, and we have not found a single great deal at resale.

That doesn’t mean it’s too late to get a ticket, though. Ticketmaster will occasionally have resale tickets available, although you will need to regularly check as these will drop as and when they are available.

There are also tickets available from platforms like Stubhub and Viagogo, although you can expect to pay a solid premium from those. We’ve seen none listed on Ticketswap based on our searching, and just the tiniest smattering of tickets on Twickets — sign up for ticket alert updates if you want a heads up on when more appear.

Website Stereoboard can be a useful site for getting a ticket resale overview, with cost estimates.

6. You can bring a water bottle (up to 500ml)

Food and drink within The O2 costs a small fortune. But you can bring in your own water bottle.

No, don’t pack one of those massive Stanley cups as we can’t imagine them passing through security. You can take in empty plastic or “collapsible” water bottles of capacity up to 500ml.

These can then be filled with water, for free, at any of the bars. Or at the venue’s water filling stations found, according to The O2’s website, here:

• Ground Floor: Towards the back under each tunnel
• Level 1: Outside block 101 and 112
• Level 4: Outside block 405 and 417

7. Don’t bring a sign or banner, or a camera

While the kids might want to bring a “we love you Ariana” banner, in the hopes of being seen on a video screen, the venue rules explicitly bar taking in such items.

Cameras and “recording devices” aren’t allowed in either. This isn’t a phone-free gig, so you can expect to see a sea of folks recording Grande’s performance, but leave standalone cameras at home to avoid tears and arguments at the security checkpoint.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Iconic London record label Rough Trade has released a second box set of singles commemorating its 50 years in the game.

The first was announced more than a year ago, and charted some of the big names from Rough Trade’s earliest years. Rough Trade 45s: Volume 2 takes on the baton, starting with releases from 1980 and continuing throughout the decade.

It’s a real celebration of the era, with reissued 45s from The Smiths, The Fall, Aztec Camera, Jonathan Richman and others.

The star of the package is a tweaked re-release of The Smiths’ The Headmaster Ritual, with direct involvement from Morrissey and Marr — a pair we typically hear bickering about each other, if they acknowledge each other's existence at all.

B-side I Want The One I Can’t Have has been added at the request of Morrissey and Marr, and the release has new artwork too — a photo of old timey actor Billy Halop.

The Headmaster Ritual was only originally released as a single in the Netherlands back in 1985, otherwise featuring as a B-side to single How Soon is Now in the US.

If the collection’s limited 1000-copy release wasn’t enough to make Rough Trade 45s: Volume 2 seem a valid collector’s item, this The Smiths release surely seals the deal.

Here are the other 45s included within the collection:

• The Fall - Totally Wired (1980), B-side: Putta Block
• Scritti Politti - The Sweetest Girl (1981), B-side: Lions After Slumber
• Robert Wyatt - Shipbuilding (1982), B-sides: Memories Of You
• Aztec Camera - Oblivious (1983), B-side: Orchid Girl
• The Go-Betweens - Cattle And Cane (1983), B-sides: Heaven Says
• Jonathan Richman - That Summer Feeling (1984), B-side: This Kind Of Music
• The Smiths - Headmaster Ritual (1985), B-side: I Want The One I Can’t Have
• The Sundays - Can’t Be Sure (1989), B-side: I Kicked A Boy
• Mazzy Star - Five String Serenade (1993), B-side: Blue Flower

This box set costs £110. It’s available to pre-order now, for release on 30th October.

And if you missed the volume 1 release and fancy that too, a double pack can be had for £190.

Among the sleeve notes you’ll find words from Morrissey and Marr — presumably again not slagging each other off for once — alongside Elvis Costello, Jonathan Richman and others. There’s also an interview with known music obsessive comedian Stewart Lee, in conversation with Rough Trade MD Geoff Travis.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

“Is she really going out with him?”

Think 'punk', think its 1977 explosion. But if you want the precise moment punk went from three chords and a spittle-sizzled spark of anger to a full-throated rock revolution, it’s those opening words of The Damned’s 1976 ‘New Rose’ — the first punk single release, the genre line-in-the-sand which would change the face of popular music forever.

Fifty years ago, from humble beginnings on the streets and in the clubs of London and NYC, a raw, volatile blast of noise tore out of speakers and permanently rewrote the rules of modern music. What began as a fierce underground rebellion defined by DIY ethics, sweat-soaked basements, and pure anti-establishment fury soon grew into a global phenomenon. Half a century later, that initial spark hasn't faded — it’s slashed its way into every level of pop culture, from fashion to film to, of course, today’s most innovative music.

To mark 50 years of punk, Shortlist is taking a comprehensive look back at where the genre came from, where it’s going, and why its unapologetic spirit is needed now more than ever. We’re tracking the movement’s fascinating trajectory, examining how raw underground aggression smoothed out into multi-platinum pop-punk, and counting down the 50 greatest punk albums and anthems of all time as selected by today’s biggest stars.

We’ve also cracked open our archives to resurface legendary conversations with pioneering trailblazers — from punk's high priestess Patti Smith to sharp-tongued poet John Cooper Clarke — alongside brand new, exclusive insights from modern torchbearers like Frank Carter.

Whether through grime-infused modern crossovers or classic vinyl cuts, punk proved that anyone could pick up an instrument and make noise. Five decades on, that ethos is louder, faster, and more vital than ever.

Hey! Ho! Let’s go!

50 Years Of Punk: A Shortlist Celebration

50 years of punk: Why the DIY ethos still matters five decades on (and why the punk spirit is needed now more than ever)

"The first time I saw The Clash I couldn’t understand a word they were singing but the look and the energy and the attitude captivated me instantaneously."

From garage bands to cultural force, the unlikely legacy of punk, as told by those who were there at the start.

• Read More

The 50 best punk albums of all time

Three chords and the truth — as punk turns half a century old, here are some of its greatest ever records from across the eras. Put them on at full volume. Get pissed. Destroy.

• Read More

The 50 greatest punk songs, ever: Today's biggest punk stars pick the most influential songs

Got three minutes to spare? This list will change your life, 50 times. From first-wave firestarters to modern pop-punk anthems, we've enlisted some of today’s biggest punk and rock acts, alongside punk culture pioneers, to help us rank the 50 punk tracks that changed music forever.

• Read More

Exclusive: Frank Carter on Sex Pistols, Grime and his “unfinished business” with Gallows

Former vocalist of Watford punk legends Gallows, leading man in rock n’roll upstarts The Rattlesnakes and the current singer in the modern reincarnation of The Sex Pistols, few living musicians can boast the same punk pedigree as Frank Carter. From punk upstart to frontman of the most famous punk band of all time, here's Carter's story — in his own words.

• Read More

From punk to pop-punk: How the most raw musical movement of all time went bubblegum

Heartbreak, teenage bedrooms and dick jokes — did punk lose its edge when the snarl turned to snark?

By the early Noughties, punk looked and sounded very different from the movement that had exploded in Britain and New York in the Seventies. This time, the guitars were polished, the choruses anthemic and the songs were way more concerned with crushes, breakups and suburban boredom. Pop punk had arrived — and the genre had gone bubblegum.

Still, millions of teens wanted a taste. Had punk really lost its bite, or just found a sweeter way to deliver it?

• Read More

Punks on punk: How the OG era of three chords rock shaped the music of today's biggest acts

Fifty years after four snarling teens took to the stage and changed music forever, the UK punk scene’s influence is still inescapable. Touching everything from fashion to activism, spawning multiple musical subgenres, and with its DIY ethos embedded into the DNA of hip hop and even indie filmmaking, the ‘70s punk explosion didn't just birth a genre – it kickstarted a creative revolution.

We hand the mic to five musicians who've lived with punk's influence for decades. From their favourite UK punk tracks to the modern London scene and the movement's enduring legacy, here's what they had to say.

• Read More

From The Archive

Patti Smith's Ultimate Playlist: The tracks that inspired the punk icon

Playlists at the ready: We're revisiting an incredible chat with the high priestess of New York punk, Patti Smith, as she runs through the soundtrack of her life, in her own words.

• Read More

“I didn’t want to follow them, it was too good”: Iggy Pop on how his fear of Queens of the Stone Age led to his greatest album in decades

"Most people, once they hit 60 and they’ve got some bucks are not gonna put themselves in this situation, where you’re testing yourself and you’re not sure if you can handle it. But with this, I kind of wanted to see what I could do. I wanted to prove something to myself.”

Iggy Pop on how a chance meeting with Josh Homme resulted in his greatest album in decades.

• Read More

Blink 182’s Tom DeLonge on UFOs, Bigfoot, and his debut film Monsters of California

Forget all the small things. If Blink 182's Tom DeLonge was to sit down and write the hit song today, it'd more likely be called ‘All The Mysterious Things’, or ‘All The Secret Things’. Maybe even ‘All The Government-Conspiracy-Military-Industrial-Complex-Cover-Up Things’.

In the years since DeLonge's rise to pop punk superstardom, the Californian songwriter has been a vocal public advocate for transparency around supernatural topics that many would consider "out there". He's staked his reputation on it — and told us all about it.

• Read More

Sex Pistols' Glen Matlock picks his 5 all-time favourite punk songs

What does it take to make a revolution-sparking, rabble-rousing, total-anarchy-inducing punk record for the ages?

“The attitude, the delivery, the subject matter, the sound, and the trousers. You've got to wear the right trousers,” reveals godfather of punk, Glen Matlock.

As the bassist of the Sex Pistols, writer of the greatest punk anthems of all time and a trailblazer whose snarling basslines and razor-sharp riffs launched a cultural revolution, he should know. Here, he talks us through the genre's best cuts.

• Read More

"It takes a lot of work to look this bad": Poet John Cooper Clarke on punk, inspiring Arctic Monkeys, and getting blagged by Lou Reed

Ready for a trip through Chickentown? We're looking back here at a 2014 chat with the original punk poet and sartorialist extraordinaire John Cooper Clarke. From inspiring the Arctic Monkeys to encounters with Lou Reed, the man’s lived.

• Read More

Malcolm McLaren considers the question coolly. “Aren’t you just more interested in sewing chaos?” asks the presenter of the BBC’s Nationwide TV show in 1976.

“Well, that’s an accusation by people who don’t really understand what kids want,” he replies.

“They want excitement, they want to transform what’s basically a very boring life for them right now. And rock music is the one thing they thought that they controlled. But if you look at the charts they don’t really have anything to do with it. Bands like the Sex Pistols are making music from the streets, born out the frustration to get something across, that is their own.”

The presenter then challenges these bands’ “bizarre clothes”.

“They’re only bizarre to old people,” McLaren counters.

“What about the nasty word ‘punk’?” she asks.

In the background a pale and lean 20-year-old John Lydon, struggling to make eye contact, pipes up in that robotic tone: “No, the press gave us [that name]. It’s their problem not ours”.

What about the Rolling Stones and The Who? “Are you against those sounds?” the presenter asks.

“Of course,” says Lydon, “because they’re established. They just do not mean anything to anyone”.

It’s an encounter in ways far more revealing than the much more famous car crash of an interview on The Bill Grundy Show later that year when Grundy, said to be a few sheets to the wind, repeatedly goaded the band members to swear to his London audience live on TV. They kindly obliged.

Yes, The Grundy Incident brought punk to national attention — the newspapers reacted as though the entire country was up in arms, though in reality relatively few people would have seen the programme. But the reasons why punk, which marks its 50th anniversary this year, still leaves its impression on pop culture so many decades after its brief flowering are more complex than confected outrage.

"A sense of agency and the stimulus to do something"

As, indeed, are its uncertain, underground origins: whether in the US, with bands the likes of MC5, Television and The Stooges, or in the UK, with the likes of X-Ray Spexs, The Adverts, The Slits, Siouxsie and The Banshees - “and then a whole bunch of copycat wankers,” as Lydon would put it - or the consequence of a cultural exchange between the two, one in part presciently repackaged by impresarios the likes of McLaren. McLaren, recall, managed the New York Dolls before he discovered the Sex Pistols.

“Certainly the cultural impact punk had in the UK was extremely acute,” argues Matthew Worley, professor of modern history at the University of Reading, who teaches a course on the topic.

“Punk gave young people a sense of agency and the stimulus to do something. And it’s still a template of how to take what’s around you and do something with it. But it wasn’t just about the sound. Punk still resonates in part because it was so visually exciting. We’re so familiar with the tropes of punk now we forget how striking it was in the 1970s when everything was flared and beige, not colourful and tight”.

Many have certainly argued that punk was a counter to the British political climate of the time: runaway unemployment, racial tensions, a disaffected and divided government, an economy in desperate free-fall, the three-day week and the ‘Winter of Discontent’. Punk built on the shock sensibility of glam rock before it — in its way a more artsy, fantastical form of proto-punk — and, arguably, before that, on the paradigm shifts brought by artists from Little Richard to Jerry Lee Lewis at the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. But, given such national instability, as the next big youth culture punk was bound to break with pop’s more romantic inclinations in favour of being angry, nihilistic and disenchanted.

According to Stephen Palmer, author of The History of Punk: Punk & Pistolry , punk just happened to have its origins in music rather than street protest. “But what made it critically important was that it would become an English, working-class, council estate-led movement,” he argues.

“The punk ethos was ‘be yourself’, but its giving permission to express fury against privilege, deference and so on alone made it important. It expressed this chaotic anger that nobody in the middle-class knew was there and which came as a massive shock to many. Punk was a polemic, one that was highly influenced by US bands — the word ‘punk’ was popularised by American culture, after all — but which could only have happened as it did in England, where it exploded”.

"Every generation needs its own sound"

Yet "punk has to be understood in context - not just that it was a time of economic crisis but that popular music [on the radio and TV] seemed to be a million miles from what was going on at street level. And every generation needs its own sound,” adds Don Letts, the DJ, film-maker and co-founder of Big Audio Dynamite who, more by happenstance than intent, documented the punk years with his The Punk Rock Movie.

“That said, the first awareness of punk for me actually came visually — the people walking up and down the King’s Road near where I worked at the time. The first time I saw The Clash I couldn’t understand a word they were singing but the look and the energy and the attitude captivated me instantaneously.”

A dark, seditious, individualistic aesthetic of rips, fetishwear, provocative and contradictory political symbols, meets the cut-and-paste ransom note graphic style of Jamie Reid — all set, in time, to be co-opted by the corporate world, as Reid predicted it would be — well, it was, at the least, fresh and surprising. More deeply, it felt like punk was the bastard lovechild of the avant-garde, and channelled a new kind of otherness.

Worley, however, reckons that the idea of punk as inherently revolutionary has been overplayed in the writing of its history. He suggests that punk’s birth was less a critique of society — lyrically it was broadly anti-establishment, but far from directed towards the end goal of a better world; punk was as apathetic as it was urgent — so much as a critique of culture's failure to reflect the disaffection felt by every generation, sometimes inherently, sometimes with whatever circumstances it finds itself facing.

“Pop music, for example, just wasn’t the preserve of young people anymore," he says, and as McLaren stated.

“It wasn’t ‘relevant’, to use a favourite word of Lydon’s. It was more about light entertainment: more predictable, more tepid, with novelty songs and excessive AOR. It certainly wasn’t providing the larger soundtrack to young people’s lives. Punk injected the thrill again. Punk recaptured what rock ’n’ roll had in part been about at its inception: disruption."

No barriers to entry

Punk was, as Jack Miller, punk historian and guitarist with Diesel Boy, has it, a kind of “lost youth music, of a different flavour but akin to heavy metal - unusual sounding, shamelessly and unapologetically itself, but also very much the basis of a community of the like-minded”, with a cultural impact, he laughs, in proportion to its loudness.

Critical to its disruptiveness was not just the volume but that the music was welcomed in spite of its performers’ ability to use the available tools of disruption, those guitars and drum sets. Its restless, sometimes abrasive, three chord style was for many, if certainly not all, punk bands, a product of rudimentary playing skills, ones that would routinely get them booed off stage, while violent antics on stage and in the audience would see them banned from venues, or from the radio or repeatedly dropped by successive record labels. Still, all the negative publicity from throwing beer glasses only helped punk grow.

That punk had such low barriers to entry — unlike the professionalism and production values espoused by the era’s prog rock, for example — made it that much more immediately accessible, argues Miller. Small wonder that punk would likewise drive an alternative media of independent record labels and lo-fi fanzines the likes of the UK’s Sniffin’ Glue. As the caption of a cartoon in one such fanzine, Sideburns, put it: “This is a chord. This is another. This is a third. Now form a band”.

That’s why “punk is a genre in which the efforts of underground and garage bands that never made an album or onto Top of the Pops are just as important to its story as these that did,” reckons Ian Glasper, bassist with hardcore punk band Stampin’ Ground and author of Burning Britain: The History of UK Punk 1980-1984.

“It’s also why I tend not to think too hard about whether or not ‘the first punk band’ was The Ramones or The Damned, because what matters was that there was this energy developing around the world,” he adds.

“But it was The Damned…”

DIY attitude and "a cultural ladder"

Indeed, rather than being about the music, arguably punk’s most important legacy is the oft-cited DIY, have-a-go mentality — through the music — and the idea that creative self-expression didn’t require anyone’s permission. This was, as Letts calls it, “punk’s greatest gift”. Seeing his mates pick up guitars with no idea how to play them — “and with the stage filling up pretty quickly” — he picked up a film camera with the same mix of ignorance, curiosity and sense of potential.

“One reason we’re still talking about this four letter word so many years later is the sheer number of people who left punk gigs inspired to do something themselves,” says Letts.

“It wasn’t just a soundtrack, or just a style or just an attitude. It was all of that. In fact, I don’t think anything has been that complete since. Of course, nobody at the time was predicting it would have its cultural impact. At the time we were just doing our things, man.

“And in a way punk painted itself into a corner. But the point is that some took that attitude and ran with it,” Letts adds.

“Punk provided a cultural ladder. Some people stayed stuck on the first rung. Others started climbing. It became bigger than a moment. It became a living thing. Like the force in Star Wars, you just had to have a feel for it”.

“As with any explosion it didn’t last long, but in a way by then punk just wasn’t needed anymore anyway,” adds Palmer. “It had already provided the touchpaper for this vast ecology of creative forms. Punk had done its work”.

For all that punk was in one sense starting to fizzle out just three or four years after it started — the Sex Pistols disbanded early in 1978, while other bands went on to be denounced as sell-outs, or to just grow up — that artistically enterprising spirit had fractured and diffused throughout the culture. Punk would prove formative to the likes of New Romanticism, Two Tone and Oi!, to cite just three wildly different youth culture movements that followed it, and not just to music but to art, fashion, film-making.

“Goth, polymorphous sexuality, a kind of laddishness, EMO - these are all lines that stretched out of punk,” Worley suggests. Meanwhile, punk itself mutated into various multiple waves of musical sub-genres throughout the 1980s and beyond, all proudly retaining the ‘punk’ heritage label: ska-punk, afro-punk, skate-punk, the more serious anarcho-punk — bolshily against anything ‘the system’ proposed — as well as many other punkish experiments. Punk could be by turns a product of music business hype, excess exuberance and deeply-felt radicalism.

Punk politicians, punk teachers, punk everyone

But then perhaps core to punk’s strange longevity has been its very nebulousness, its chameleon quality.

“The thing is that punk means something different to almost everyone touched by it,” says Glasper.

“Some see it as deadly serious, a means to convey an anti-authority message. But to others it’s always just been about jumping up and down and having fun." Protest for some was just laughs for many others. It was the Pistols’ Sid Vicious who was said to have invented pogo dancing.

Yet that very nebulousness, he adds, is also important for allowing the essential psyche of punk — rather than some nostalgic revisiting of the 1970s — to be embraced by every generation.

“I grew up in the 1980s, in a boring town, in the shadow of nuclear armageddon, and punk was for me a way of venting my frustrations then too,” says Palmer. “If we all lived idyllic lives there wouldn’t be the need for punk. But unfortunately there’s always something to be angry about."

Is there the same determination to do something about it though, even if that’s just to sneer into the wind? Maybe punk’s dark secret is out: that its hardcore acts of uncomformity didn’t really change much. Don Letts worries that the punk spirit is, if not lost, then at best hibernating and proving hard to wake.

“The problem for me is the aspirations of people creating now,” he says.

“We got into punk to be anti-establishment. Now it’s to be part of the establishment, to be on red carpets and MTV. I know it’s hard to take a chance when you have rent to pay. It’s hard to be a rebel if you’re 30 and still living with your mum. And obviously London isn’t built for people without money anymore is it?

"But we really need the punk spirit now. We need punk politicians, punk teachers, punk expressed though all aspects of life”.

• 50 years of punk: A Shortlist celebration

If the late 1960s were a time when the youth of America and the UK put a flower in the hair of the elder generation, entreating them to chill out and join them in peace and love, then 1976 was the year they took that flower right back, snapped its stalk and stamped on it. No longer were kids going to blithely conform to societal rules, or authority figures, or organised education.

That year, almost simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic, something changed. In the US, there was a complete distrust of politicians thanks to Watergate, Nixon and the Vietnam war, while in the UK there was total economic crisis and rampant inflation while the country baked in a (then) unprecedented heatwave. Conditions were ideal for righteous anger and indignation, and the younger generation responded by picking up the traditional weapons of the non-criminal — electric guitars.

Punk was born, and with it came a volley of spit in the face of five years of soft rock and masturbatory solos, replaced by two or even three chord exclamations of outright dissatisfaction and a rejection of corporate greed. The spirit of punk has lived on for fifty years now, and has produced some of the most vital, exhilarating and ‘quick, turn this up right now’ music in history.

Here are half a century’s worth of glorious albums that capture it all, in no particular order, all shot through with the kind of vitriol that Johnny Rotten would approve of.

Put them on at full volume. Get pissed. Destroy.

50) MC5 - Kick Out the Jams (1969)

There’s ahead of their time, and then there’s MC5. Summoning the violence of Altamont and the death of hippies, the Michigan band released a live album as their debut, a mix of garage rock, metal and punk before anyone knew what it was, the title track featuring vocalist Rob Tyner screaming ‘Kick out the Jams, motherfuckers’. The upscale department store chain Hudson’s promptly banned it. MC5 took out a full page ad in the national press stating simply: “Fuck Hudson’s.”

49) New York Dolls - New York Dolls (1973)

New York City in the early 1970s was not a safe place to be; Manhattan was practically bankrupt, violent crime spiralled. Out of this backdrop came the New York Dolls, a hard-drinking American counterpart to the Rolling Stones, with songs about kids feeling repressed and like ‘whipped dogs’, all spiky guitars and shouted choruses, while the band would dress in full drag and make up amidst a culture of rampant homophobia.

48) Television - Marquee Moon (1977)

If ever there were a more thoughtful side to punk, this is it — an album that is packed full of gloriously accomplished music, complex guitar lines, stunning melodies and poetic lyrics. Graduates of lower Manhattan’s infamous CBGBs club, Television’s Marquee Moon would go on to influence the likes of U2, R.E.M and Pavement.

47) Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material (1979)

Formed in Northern Ireland as the country was reeling from the violence of the Troubles , Stiff Little Fingers swallowed up the brutality and deprivation of daily life, vomiting it back out with vengeance on this scorching debut. Within one minute of the opener you’ll hear the roots of Green Day’s Welcome to Paradise. “It’s time the bastards fell” screams the frontman Jake Burns. Furious stuff.

46) The Runaways - The Runaways (1976)

Godmothers of punk is a very cool title to have, and a deserved one for a ‘no f**ks given’ all female group led by Joan Jett who grew up playing the Whiskey a Go Go in LA and produced a fantastic, hard rocking debut that featured Lou Reed covers, plus the incendiary, rebellion-on-record, Cherry Bomb.

45) Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime (1984)

Double albums are not often punk albums, more often associated with the excesses of prog rock. But inspired by Pink Floyd, Californian trio Minutemen went against that and combined jazz, punk, poetry and country with lyrics that explored war, violence, the American day to day graft, but mostly, brilliantly, just driving different cars around.

44) Public Enemy - Yo! Bum Rush the Show (1987)

Punk in genre they may not have been, punk in mentality they certainly were. Chuck D et al basically threw a political hand grenade of a record into capitalist, ‘80s greed-obsessed American culture and didn’t care less who it upset. Angry, confrontational, it was a debut rap album that won the traditionally guitar-obsessed NME’s album of the year.

43) Buzzcocks - Singles Going Steady (1979)

A compilation album put together to introduce Bolton’s Buzzcocks to the US it might have been, but such was the strength of songwriting on display from Pete Shelley here, it ended up forever sitting with LPs like London Calling and Setting Sons as a bone fide punk classic. Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve) is one of the finest pop songs in all history.

42) Green Day - Dookie (1994)

As the 1990s began in California, Billie Joe Armstrong was taking most of the records you’ll read about here, ignoring the grunge all around him, and writing his own breakneck skate punk anthems - fiercely melodic tunes that just worked perfectly on the radio. He zeroed in on his own anxiety and boredom and in doing so found an empathetic audience of millions - the album went 20 times platinum.

41) Husker Du - Flip Your Wig (1985)

A decade that was summed up by corporate greed, cocaine and shoulder pads was always going to need a counter-measure, and in Minnesota Husker Du were trying to make hardcore punk rock into a viable living, adding a far more melodic element while turning down major label attention. On this album you can hear all the signs of singer-songwriter Bob Mould’s defining Sugar album Copper Blue, seven years early.

40) Black Flag - Damaged (1981)

Black Flag were the band that noticed Husker Du, and would sign them to their label, but in 1981 they were busy taking several attempts to record their own debut album because none of them had been in a recording studio before. Once they managed it, they produced an angry, hardcore classic that influenced everyone from Nirvana to Soundgarden to My Chemical Romance.

39) The Misfits - Misfits (1986)

Another compilation, this time from Glen Danzig’s New Jersey horror punk rockers, Misfits is a twenty-song burst of fuzzy guitar on which you can hear elements of almost every remotely similar band ever since. The group had already split up by 1983, but did enough that Green Day and The Offspring cite them as a massive influence.

38) The Jam - All Mod Cons (1978)

Nobody worked faster in the UK in the late ‘70s than a 20 year-old Paul Weller, and he’d already written two superb Jam albums by the time this one came around. But the tracklist on this is just frightening frankly. Brilliant song after brilliant song, with highlights including To Be Someone, David Watts, English Rose and Down in the Tube Station at Midnight.

37) The Stooges - Fun House (1970)

Not a commercial hit when it came out, probably because nobody knew what on earth it was, Iggy Pop and his mates continued in the vein of fellow Michigan-ers MC5 and tried to make everything sound as loud as possible on this second album. Two minutes into this and you know they succeeded in some style. Raw, primal, a true predecessor of punk.

36) The Distillers - Coral Fang (2003)

LA punk rockers The Distillers didn’t last long in their first iteration. But it was long enough for Aussie export Brody Dalle to front three albums with her growling snarl, including this foot to the floor effort that featured breakthrough single Drain the Blood which was championed by Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme. Dismantle Me and the title track are the real highlights though.

35) Patti Smith - Horses (1975)

The story of punk is littered with trailblazers, and Smith is undoubtedly one of those. Horses was her first album, a combination of poetry and punk, with a man steeped in anti-establishment garage rock at the controls in the shape of Velvet Underground’s John Cale. “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine” is the opening line, and it continues in that vein.

34) Fugazi - Repeater (1990)

Fugazi were a band you would hear a lot about in the early ‘90s amidst the Pearl Jams and Nirvanas, but not one that ever quite broke through. One listen to this however will underline why they were so often referenced by the bands that did. Underpinned by an awesome rhythm section, songs that speared consumer culture and the annoyance of having to work for a living made for an album that gets better with each passing year.

33) The Who - Live at Leeds (1970)

Pete Townsend has a decent shout for being the original punk; nobody else in the mid 1960s was trashing their own equipment and this album captured his band’s pure on-stage adrenaline like nothing else. Keith Moon is gloriously unhinged behind the drums, Townsend’s guitar a wall of noise. My Generation is a stuttering punk anthem spun out to an astonishing 15 minutes here.

32) Devo - Freedom of Choice (1980)

If you ask anyone to come up with a Devo track they’re going to say Whip It, and this is the album it comes from, written under pressure from their label that if it didn’t succeed they would be dropped. They responded by making a collection of songs with an ironic title that, alongside Talking Heads, crossed punk energy with unusual arrangements and lyrics about how bizarre working life could be.

31) Velvet Underground - Velvet Underground and Nico (1967)

Widely considered the first ‘proto-punk’ album, this is New York garage rock, heroin chic, dark sunglasses, talk-singing, and playing so laid back it's basically horizontal; Lou Reed and Nico with the coolest vocals of all time. Plus that peelable Andy Warhol banana sleeve. This is the sound of telling someone “sorry, you’re in our seat, we pre-booked it”, and getting a response of just a silently raised middle finger.

30) Blondie - Blondie (1976)

Along with the Velvets, Blondie were yet another New York City product, another CBGB standard, and in Debbie Harry had a truly generational icon up front. Their debut, while not featuring many, if any, of the hits that would make them globally famous, is still stacked with melodies and attitude, like the opener X Offender and their first UK single, Rip Her To Shreds.

29) Idles - Joy As An Act of Resistance (2017)

Anyone who saw Idles breakthrough with their festival appearances in 2018, the year this album dropped, will have recognised, as Joe Talbot prowled the stage mic in hand, the air of danger that outlined them as modern day punk royalty — a band ready to take on all comers. It felt like anything could go off at their gigs, and this record reflected that uncertainty perfectly, especially on Never Fight a Man With a Perm.

28) Meat Puppets - II (1984)

After their debut album proved too scuzzy and too hardcore to bring them any attention, California’s Meat Puppets tried pretty much everything on their second, including a Stones cover, country, rock, punk, bluegrass and more (including what some called ‘cowpunk’.) The result was an album that inspired the really big bands to come - hence their on-stage invitation in the middle of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged.

27) Amyl and the Sniffers - Comfort To Me (2021)

If you want female-led punk rock with attitude to spare, then head down under and share a stubby with Amy Taylor and her group, whose gigs have become legendary. In 2021 they threw this into the mess of Covid, led by the brilliant Hertz, which combined Electric Six’s ‘Gay bar’ with the desperate wish we all had to get the hell out of dodge.

26) Turnstile - Glow On (2021)

And the spirit of punk continued on to yet another generation; Turnstile made that same trip as their forefathers in going from hardcore to something more accessible, in the process making an album that earned Grammy nominations and topped many album of the year polls. Semi-shouted vocals, genre mash-ups, urgent, slammed drums and shades of the ‘90s in Jane’s Addiction made this a must-download for tens of thousands.

25) At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command (2000)

If you want to see modern (if 2000 counts as modern) punk in action then a quick google to witness ATDI perform One Armed Scissor on Jools Holland will do the trick. The Texans put all of that energy and more into their third (and best) album, which starts off thunderous and basically continues in that mode without ever letting up.

24) Rocket From the Crypt - Scream Dracula, Scream! (1995)

Much of the 1990s was not a big time for punk in general, but in the middle of it Rocket from the Crypt appeared from San Diego, armed with the superb single On a Rope which was everywhere for a while, putting on outrageous live shows at which anything could happen, from fire breathing to prize raffles. The album is similarly unpredictable, with sax, violas and chaotic riffs galore.

23) The Offspring - Smash (1994)

Together with Green Day, The Offspring emerged from California in ‘94 and brought with them an army of skate punk teens who snapped up their albums in the millions. Smash was packed with tunes, providing three hit singles, and guitar-wise sounded like the natural progression to where the heaviest of grunge bands had left off a year previously.

22) Bad Religion - Stranger than Fiction (1994)

The same year as punk went mainstream in the US, LA’s Bad Religion, who had been going for 14 years already, did their best to sound like the originals doing it in the UK in the 1970s, especially on the title track. In doing so they had their biggest hit to date, getting certified gold.

21) The Pogues - Rum Sodomy & the Lash (1985)

Shane MacGowan was a punk at heart, a man who belied his private school background by fully embracing the folk songs of Ireland and allying them with table smashing, drink-fuelled live performances. On this second album the recipe was perfected, MacGowan putting all of himself into the laureate level lyrics, twinned with inspired covers like Dirty Old Town.

20) Gallows - Orchestra of Wolves (2006)

When hardcore punks Gallows unleashed the single Abandon Ship on the UK it was with a music video that summed up their live shows; within five seconds lead singer Frank Carter simply launches himself bodily into the crowd. The album was huge, it sounded like it could be American, Warner Bros duly handed them a million quid to make another.

19) Rancid - ...And Out Come the Wolves (1995)

This is punk played as it should be played — breakneck tempo, spiky three-chord guitars, vocals spat rather than sung, and impossible to stand still to. The single Ruby Soho was the song that gained them MTV exposure, and Rancid remained the cool underground California cousins to Green Day and The Offspring in the mid-90s.

18) Siouxsie and The Banshees - Juju (1981)

Formed exactly fifty years ago in London, the Banshees released their first record right in the midst of punk, then used their live experiences and burgeoning musicianship to make two fantastic albums at the start of the new decade, including Juju, which featured the superb Spellbound and Arabian Knights.

17) Rise Against - The Sufferer and the Witness (2006)

While in the UK Gallows sounded distinctly US in their music, the same year over in Chicago, Rise Against were doing American punk rock better than they had in all their seven years on this fourth album, which demanded radio play. Injection is an absolutely brilliant song, Roadside might be even better.

16) Wire - Pink Flag (1977)

If you thought Connection by Elastica was an original composition, then have a listen to track three on this album and report back. Britain’s Wire were seen as post-punk barely a year into punk and this stands as their epitaph; 21 songs smashed into 34 minutes, not a second wasted on it.

15) Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables (1980)

Like New York City, California proved fertile ground for punk bands and the Dead Kennedys were one of the first out of the traps in 1978. Their debut album echoed the sound of the Sex Pistols from over the pond, and if artwork makes a statement, theirs featured several police cars on fire.

14) Bad Brains - Bad Brains (1982)

So many punk bands were initially hardcore groups, and Washington D.C.’s Bad Brains were pioneers of the genre, across nine albums proving also masters of almost limitless artistic directions. On this, their first LP, they attempted to capture the insanity of their CBGB live performances.

13) Descendents - Milo Goes to College (1982)

Yet more Californian punk alumni, Descendents added surf rock elements and never sounded better than on their first album, a yardstick of pop-punk that is referenced by the likes of Fall Out Boy, The Offspring and Blink 182, whose drummer Travis Barker has a Descendents tattoo.

12) The Replacements - Let It Be (1984)

The Replacements had been going for five years by the time they released this album, and the band had grown out of their punk roots, wanting to find genuine success with more complex songs. They did so in spades, creating a catchy tune-filled record that often features in greatest of all time lists — perhaps the only time they managed to hold it together long enough not to totally self-sabotage.

11) Fontaines DC - Romance (2024)

Fontaines DC’s earlier albums certainly sound more ‘straight punk’ than this, the album that took them from side stages to main arenas, but what they did here was go in a completely unique direction against all expectations. Starburster sounds like absolutely nothing else around.

10) Parquet Courts - Wide Awake (2018)

And still, in the 2010s, New York City continued to produce bands that tapped into the sound of the underground and brought it to everyone’s attention. Parquet Courts were eight years in when they made Wide Awake! And yet it sounded as fresh as a debut, topping end of year lists and prompting one reviewer to state it was ‘the most woke punk-rock record since the heyday of The Clash’.

9) The Strokes - Is This It (2001)

A millennium needed a completely new musical movement and The Strokes duly provided it, reaching to steal the best of Tom Petty and the Velvet Underground, sticking on leather jackets and making a New York album that influenced pretty much every guitar band on the planet at the time.

8) Blink 182 - Enema of the State (1999)

Often unfairly derided as simply American locker room fare due to the humour present in their work, Blink were in fact very, very clever and accomplished musicians, and this was packed with punk-pop-rock tunes that swept the radiowaves and sold 15m copies.

7) The Wipers - Is This Real? (1980)

Nirvana were probably the closest to punk in ethos of the mainstream early ‘90s guitar bands, and Kurt Cobain would at one point opine that everything they knew they learned from The Wipers. This album is raw, scuzzy, and poorly recorded, but the melodies shine through regardless.

6) Gang of Four - Entertainment! (1979)

Slotting into the void left by the explosion of the Sex Pistols, Gang of Four introduced British punk to more musical styles, at times sounding similar to The Jam. Heavily political, they might have been even more famous had they not cancelled their own Top of the Pops appearance when the producers wanted them to change a lyric about condoms.

5) The Clash - The Clash (1977)

One of the most influential bands in history, The Clash’s debut was recorded over three weekends and marks a total shift in guitar music — Hate and War providing a direct rebuttal of peace and love, White Riot telling the story of British race politics and London’s Burning doing what it said on the tin. Angry, frantic, urgent, it is all of Joe Strummer and Mick Jones’ talent unleashed on the world.

4) Bob Dylan - Bringing it All Back Home (1965)

If you want an early example of someone facing pearl-clutching anger at his actions and doing whatever he wanted anyway, this is it. Amid cries of Judas, Dylan ignored the acoustic folks fans and plugged in to an amp, managing to heavily influence not just The Beatles, but the Stones, The Who and therefore The Sex Pistols and Ramones in the process.

3) The Undertones - The Undertones (1979)

Feargal Sharkey might have been naff as anything by the 1980s, but at the end of the decade he and his band had gone from their Irish bedrooms to making a proper, timeless punk anthem with Teenage Kicks, a classic that focused on youthful frustrations rather than the troubles that went on all around them. Plus Jimmy Jimmy, which is just as good.

2) The Ramones - Ramones (1976)

And again from New York City, in April of 1976 came the birth of punk in the United States thanks to four leather clad young men singing about violence and drug use across 14 songs, none of which made it to three minutes in length, most of which are north of 160bpm. “Hey! Ho! Let’s go!... The kids are losing their minds” shouted Joey Ramone, and they duly did just that.

1) Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols (1977)

The album that completely changed the culture of the UK. Suddenly, it was not a strange sight to see young people on the high streets with green hair and safety pins through their noses. The band were on the telly, swearing and smashing sets up. The record itself was a call to arms, huge guitars, thunderous drums, that nasal whine of malcontent. Nothing was the same afterwards.

• 50 years of punk: A Shortlist celebration

In Shortlist’s 50 years of punk series, we’ve celebrated the bands that started it all. Yet in the last two decades there’s been one frontman who’s been just as vital to UK punk as The Damned or The Buzzcocks of yesteryear — Frank Carter.

The former vocalist of Watford punk legends Gallows, leading man in rock n’roll upstarts Frank Carter and The Rattlesnakes and the current singer in the modern reincarnation of The Sex Pistols, few living musicians can boast the same punk pedigree.

To celebrate London punk still snarling 50 years later, we sat down with Carter to talk about his journey from destroying dive bars in Gallows to performing across the world with The Sex Pistols.

From punk upstart to frontman of the most famous punk band of all time, here's Carter's story — in his own words.

1984 - 2000: The local legends that inspired Frank to pick up a mic

I must have been 13 when I started wanting to play music. There was a punk band from Watford called Captain Everything, and bands like Fire Apple Red and My Dad Joe from the West Harts scene. They made more of a difference to me than the big bands, because there was punk rock in its purest form, directly in front of me, and I could touch it.

It wasn't in pages in magazines, it wasn't on MTV, I wasn't having to steal a CD from a record store, it was right there. I remember thinking, "Okay, this is what I want to be doing!"

2000 - 2004: From cover bands to a bold new sound

I was around 15 years old when I was really trying to pursue a band. I'd had a few bands where we’d have a few practices, play some covers, and then it always just fell apart before the first gig.

Gallows was the first one where we really toured. For Gallows, I got a call from Lags [founding guitarist] And he was like, "Look, I’ve seen you around and you play like me. I want to start a punk band that sounds different from anything else.” And that was exactly where I wanted to be.

At the time it was a lot of nu-metal bands, pop punk bands, and then really techie metal bands — that wasn't for me. I grew up listening to ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s pop music. So I think I brought a pop sensibility that most people would shy away from. I was trying to find the hook.

2006: ‘I remember the whole ceiling coming down’ — the sweaty seafront set that got Gallows noticed

We recorded the album and the record company sent us on this month-long tour of every fucking dive.

We played a show in Southend, right on the fucking seafront, and we just tore that fucking place apart. It was a function room at a pub, there was like six regulars just sitting there and then a bunch of gothy punk kids, and we all just fucking shredded the place.

I remember the whole ceiling coming down… The venue were just like, fuck the ceiling, this is the best thing we've had in here in ages!

From Nu-Metal support slots to Nu-opportunities

We opened up for Papa Roach and it was just a fucking disaster. Just Gallows, doing Gallows things, throwing equipment in the crowd, pure chaos. I actually love Papa Roach — I was at Papa Roach's first London gigs— but by this point when I was on stage, I was out for blood.

I think it fell apart within 20 minutes.

When we were off stage getting told off by security, this guy just comes bowling through — a short, stocky fella — and he just puts me in a headlock, and was like “That's brilliant, let me take you out for dinner!” He was a manager and he’s like “I'm setting up this new label, I've got some great bands, and I want you guys!

In September 2006 Gallows debut album ‘Orchestra Of Wolves’ releases, turning heads across the country.

The gig that made waves in the music press

We played London’s Mean Fiddler for a Kerrang! Halloween party. It was us and Bring Me the Horizon — I think Oli [Sykes, Bring Me the Horizon vocalist] was Scooby Doo — but we went as the droogs from Clockwork Orange. We felt like a team, a proper unit because we had this uniform.

We played a great fucking gig. It's easy when you've got a cane in your hands, you can really cause some chaos!

At one point, one of the boys was like, we should just play in this getup all the time, but I didn't want to wear a fucking jock strap for the rest of my life!

2007: Spit by South West — grafting in Texas and performing in front of rock icons

We flew to South by South West in Texas, and we played something crazy like 15 shows in four days. We played in a taco bar in the middle of the day, and I remember looking up and just seeing [Metallica drummer] fucking Lars Ulric! Dave Grohl [Foo Fighters] was there, Tom Morello [Rage Against The Machine] was there…. I remember being like, "I'm fucking out of here!"

We played three songs and I just climbed out the window mid set. I was like, "Nah, I can't do this shit, not in front of them." And it turned out that they liked that. They were just like, "Yeah, that was great. I remember you climbed out the fucking window, you just fucked off, you'd had enough, and we were like, 'We've had enough too, it's too hot for this shit!'"

Gallows goes Grime — Lethal Bizzle x Gallows

“It’s quite simple how this came about — I just love grime. I remember bumping into [Lethal Bizzle] at some award ceremony and saying "We’re gonna do this cover of a Ruts song. Do you know the Ruts?" And he's like, "Yeah, I just did a cover of Babylon’s Burning", so I’m thinking this is the guy, he just fucking gets it!

So we decided to come together to do a cover of ‘Staring at the Rude Bois by the Ruts. It was definitely the most pop sounding song we'd done but it just worked really, really well.

Staring at the Rude Bois went onto be Gallows’ highest charting UK top 40 single, appearing at number 31 on the chart on 25 November 2007. Gallows also won a Kerrang! Award in 2007 for Best British newcomer.

2009: Great Britain, Grey Britain

Warner Bros had signed us, and we had got the unthinkable — we'd managed to secure a two album firm deal. So we were guaranteed a second record, no matter what.

They wanted to re-release Orchestra Of Wolves — so they bought that as the first one — and then Grey Britain was the second record. Korda Marshall is pretty much a genius A&R who was responsible for some of the biggest British rock bands — bands like Ash, and Muse — and he was the one that saw something in us and said, "Yeah, Gallows is going to be the next big thing”.

Grey Britain, however, was the antithesis of Orchestra Of Wolves’ catchy three minute bangers. A prophetic concept album about the tide of hatred and division slowly consuming Britain, it was a dark, cinematic and confrontational record that to this day remains a misunderstood masterpiece.

I remember sitting in the listening party for Great Britain, and it's like a fucking film — it's a movie, that record. It's not supposed to be a hit album. It's supposed to be an atmosphere. It's our odyssey. I remember seeing all their faces [at Warner Bros.] and just thinking, "Right, yeah, well, we're fucked here, they don't get it."

So we made the record that we wanted to make, they fulfilled their obligations, and then they let us go. I’ve got to give some credit to a major for even allowing that to happen.

I was out last night, and someone walked over to me and said "Great Britain changed my life" and that's pretty amazing, 17 years on. We were trying to make a cult classic, we were not trying to make a mainstream hit, and I feel like we did that.

2011: The fall of Gallows

One of the last tours Gallows did was labelled as ‘Back to the Dives’. It was supposed to be this cool thing, us returning to small venues after selling out venues like Brixton and returning to our roots. But it was a market test, to see if there was still love for the band. And I just hate that. I think that's the biggest betrayal.

In some ways I was quite eager to do something different, and I wanted to start moving towards a rock-centred world, and I'm not sure the boys did.

I think the reality was we probably all could have just used a year off, to be honest. Then when the boys said that they were going to carry on, it was a shock to me, because I think at that point my ego was probably quite out of control and maybe that pushed me even further to do my own thing.

2011 - 2014: From all out aggression to new band Pure Love

It was fucking hard. It felt disastrous at the time, if people did come to Pure Love shows [it was] to see the fall of Frank from Gallows. They came to fuck me up and say, "What the fuck you doing?"

But the reality was, I was tired of singing about hate at that point. It was poisoning me, and that's because I wasn't releasing it in a positive way. It was really, really hard work. I had an amazing time, but there's a lot of people there that didn't want it to happen.

In 2014, after releasing just one album, Pure Love disbanded.

2015 - 2024: Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes strike

[The Rattlesnakes] was supposed to be one record. We took it all really in our stride. I think five albums in 10 years is an insane amount of work, and we'd had some crazy highs and lows.

We'd sold out Alexandra Palace. We'd survived fucking Covid as a band. Even on our last tour, we sold out two nights at the Roundhouse, back-to-back, which is an amazing feat for an independent band.

2024 - 2026: Never Mind The Bollocks, Here Comes Frank Carter and The Sex Pistols

Towards the end of [Rattlesnakes], I think we needed a break, and randomly that's when I got a call from Louis Matlock, who's Glenn Matlock's son. He's like, "My dad wants to meet you.” I'm thinking, "I don't want to meet your dad. I love the Sex Pistols. Don't ruin this for me!"

[But] Glenn is lovely. He's very quiet, very softly spoken, but a legend of music. He says "Hey, we want to do this reunion, but we can't seem to make it work with John [Lydon, original Sex Pistols frontman]. So we thought...could this work with another singer? Is that something that you would be interested in?"

I was really blindsided. I just thought he wanted to hang out and maybe write a song together, and immediately I was just like, "Yeah, I'll do it". I just knew in the very soul of me, and I gave it no thought.

The first practice I did with Paul "Cookie" Cook and Glen I thought I totally fucked it. I was really struggling, but! After that Steve Jones flew over and we had, I think, maybe two rehearsals, and then we would just go straight into three gigs. It was a beautiful, beautiful week, amazing shows.

Right off the back of that, they were like, "Hey, we've been offered this gig in Italy, do you fancy doing that?" At that point, I was like, "Yeah, cool, fuck it".

I think off the back of that, they really saw who I was and what I was about, and the next thing I know, they're like, "We're thinking about doing some gigs next year. You busy?" So it just all kind of fell together. Here we are in 2026 and we're still fucking still doing it.

[With Sex Pistols shows] rather than switching off, I switch on more. I think maybe when it's when it's your own stuff it's a lot easier to switch off and just go with the motion, but this I've had to really work at. I want to do them proud.

I've not met John, and I'd love to, but I want to do him proud as well because without him, I wouldn't be in music. I remember seeing him back in the day, skinny orange-haired maniac, and I was like, that's me! The greatest gift is being able to walk on stage with them and make them all smile. I'll be thinking about that on my deathbed. The band that gave me so much, helped me find my people, helped me find my identity, the band that gave punk rock to the world, I'm able to put smiles on their faces.

They're also all very big characters, and I'm not trying to diminish any of that. What the world needs is their fucking songs, the world needs that music more than ever now. If one young kid comes to the show with their dad or their grandparent, and they see one guitar, one bass drum, and a singer sweating, and they think "I'm going to start a ban"? Then it was all worth it.

When it comes to new Sex Pistols music, you'd have to ask the others about that. I'm ready. I've written some bits that I think would be cool with them, but l think they just really enjoy playing live. I think it would be a lot harder for them to make some new tunes now, because the whole world is watching. So, I understand the pressure. There's no pressure from me, and if they ever want to, I'd love to.

Will Gallows ever return?

With Gallows, what happened in four years with that band, it's pretty iconic. For me, I feel like there's still unfinished business there. The way it ended was sad. My brother and I, we healed, it's water under the bridge between us now, and so I don't know what the future holds.

But I think at some point, I've at least got to take those lads to dinner and see where their heads are at.

If Gallows got back together, though, I could never call it a reunion, because to me it never stopped.

Just because they went and did other records, that band is still my band, you know? If we ever went back, it wouldn't be a reunion, it would just be a return.

A teenage breakup can feel like the end of the world. For Set It Off frontman Cody Carson, it became the beginning of something even bigger.

It started with New Found Glory’s ‘Sticks and Stones’.

“I was going through a breakup – the kind of high school breakup where it hurts you unbelievably — and they really found me,” the pop punk singer opens up.

“Them, and Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance… that was my breakthrough into punk.”

Like most punk fans’ route to rebellion, his wasn’t through a political manifesto or a spikey mohawk. It was through a record that truly understood why he was crying in his bedroom.

By the early Noughties, punk looked and sounded very different from the movement that had exploded in Britain and New York in the Seventies. This time, the guitars were polished, the choruses anthemic and the songs were way more concerned with crushes, breakups and suburban boredom. Pop punk had arrived — and the genre had gone bubblegum.

Still, millions of teens wanted a taste. But had punk really lost its bite, or just found a sweeter way to deliver it?

Punk has always been pop

Punk has always been poppier than it might appear.

The Ramones wrapped catchy pop melodies in buzzsaw guitars, and made no secret of where those hooks came from.

“I hate to blow the mystique, but at the time, we really liked bubblegum music, and we really liked the Bay City Rollers,” Joey Ramone once admitted. Heck, the punk icon even revealed that the Scottish boyband’s chant-heavy hit ‘Saturday Night’ helped inspire the “Hey! Ho! Let’s go!” hook in ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’.

For Adam Lazzara, frontman of 00s emo pop punk superstars Taking Back Sunday, punk was never about following a strict musical formula, anyway.

“I think punk, to me, is that when everyone else says no, you figure out where ‘yes’ is and you go get it,” he shares as we sit down with the band.

His is a definition that feels closer to the spirit of punk than any argument about how distorted the guitars should be.

Pop punk didn’t invent punk’s sweet tooth. It just polished the production and brought those hooks to a new generation. The sound was changing, but the instinct behind it arguably hadn’t.

But, that route between punk and pop wasn’t necessarily a straight line. For American punk rock band The Menzingers, the brighter American version of punk proved to be a path back to the British bands who started it.

“I think as teenagers, the first American punk bands that we started listening to were pop punk bands like Blink-182, Green Day and then even bands like Rancid,” vocalist Greg Barnett explains.

“But when we got into The Clash, we were like, ‘Okay, there’s so much more you can do with this music than just a few chords and some pop melodies.’ The UK punk bands that we got into really expanded what we started to do musically.”

Pop punk hadn’t cut them off from punk’s past — it had led them to it.

“English punk was really huge for us, especially The Clash,” bassist Eric Keen adds, “We built the band around The Clash. We are Clash historians in a kind of ridiculous way. We love everything about them.”

The deeper they dug, the greater the punk influences that came, with Eric also naming The Specials and Cock Sparrer among the British bands who shaped them.

Fifty years on, it is the culture surrounding the music that The Menzingers’ bassist believes is still going strong.

“So much has changed, but the energy and the community, I feel, have stayed the same,” Eric explains.

“People are still going to the shows and building a community around it. That’s the most important and exciting thing to me.”

Pop punk goes mainstream

The Nineties saw Green Day and The Offspring break into the mainstream, before Blink-182, New Found Glory, Sum 41 and Fall Out Boy carried punk’s poppier side into arenas, skateparks and millions of teenage bedrooms.

For Set if Off’s Cody Carson, the appeal of this new generation came down to individual songs. “On Sticks and Stones, ‘Understatement’ was my favourite track. It probably still is,” he says.

“With Fall Out Boy, I think I’d go for ‘Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year’. And for My Chemical Romance, ‘Mama’ is one of the most interesting tracks ever written.”

Pop punk’s growing commercial power also made it easier than ever to discover. You could find it on the radio, television, a film soundtrack or the T-shirts in H&M. It became an accessible way into a much wider musical history.

What’s punk anyway?

Not everyone welcomed punk’s glossy new era. As major label budgets grew, music videos dominated MTV and choruses became increasingly radio friendly, others loved to toss around “sell-out” insults.

Motion City Soundtrack guitarist Joshua Cain has little interest in joining in.

“Who are we to police what is punk and what is not?” the rocker asks.

“We wanted to do the right things, go with our gut and make music that meant something to us. It wasn’t ever done for anybody else, and I think that’s what punk is, for me.”

“As long as your band is true to what you fucking want, I think that is pretty punk,” Cain adds.

For the US rock band’s frontman Justin Pierre, being true to yourself doesn’t have to mean staying the same forever, either.

“Being true to yourself can also mean, ‘We’re going this way with what we’re doing, and then we’re going this way with what we’re doing,’” he says.

“The systems in place want to put you in boxes. I think there is something very punk rock about doing the opposite of that.”

Set It Off’s Cody Carson has an even more direct response to anyone who says pop punk isn’t “real” punk.

“Stop putting labels on things. Stop being elitist. Stop gatekeeping,” he shares with us.

“Let people like what they like. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t affect you. Let people enjoy things!”

For all its pop punk leaning, for Minneapolis-hailing Motion City Soundtrack, punk’s meaning has become even more political today.

“We were staying out of being a super political band because it would have felt a little forced,” Joshua Cain admits, “Not that we aren’t political, but it just didn’t feel like it worked. Now, the world’s changed so much.”

With “the system so broken”, Cain tells us, “you basically have to fight for your rights at this point”.

Frontman Justin Pierre brings that fight back to something even closer to home. “Try not to look at people as the problem. It’s the systems in place,” he says, “Help your neighbours. Work in your community — just start there. It’s really simple.”

Born in the teen bedroom

Now, Set It Off are becoming the pop punk gateway band for a new generation.

“It’s surreal and it’s weird,” Carson tells us.

“I’ve been seeing a lot of bands come out that have referenced us. Friends of mine in the industry will say, ‘Dude, I keep hearing your name being used as a reference for what to work towards inside a studio when other bands are writing.’”

The songs have travelled further than he ever expected, too.

“There are so many songs where I’m just writing about what I went through specifically, and then you look out into the crowd and see someone angrily singing it back at you,” he says. “You’re like, ‘Wow, you really tied this to something in your personal life.’”

“You never expect how it’s going to reach somebody or how they’re going to connect,” he adds. “It makes us so happy and truly grateful that anybody can see us as a gateway, a connection or a way to cope.”

Sure, punk went bubblegum. But it gave another generation something to sink its teeth into all over again.

• 50 years of punk: A Shortlist celebration

HEY! HO! LET’S GO!

Fifty years after punk tore up the rulebook, its greatest songs are still as loud, shouty, catchy and as relevant as ever. Five decades of punk has democratised popular music letting anyone armed with just three chords and the truth get on stage, find their people, and change the world.

And these are some of punks best cuts. From first-wave firestarters to modern pop-punk anthems, we've enlisted some of today’s biggest punk and rock acts, alongside punk culture pioneers, to help us rank the 50 punk tracks that changed music forever. We couldn't resist throwing some of our favourites into the mix, too.

Crank up the volume, don your best Billy Idol snarl and get ready to pogo…

The 50 best punk songs, ever!

50. Rise Above — Black Flag (1981)

"Rise Above by Black Flag is one of my favorite punk songs. I grew up with The Clash and Black Flag as huge influences, and the energy of the crowd shouting 'Rise above / We gotta rise above!' gives me the adrenaline I need from punk rock sonically.

"And the statement is the truth. Every lyric to this day still resonates with me and I think shows how timeless punk will always be."

- As chosen by TX2

49. Identity — X-Ray Spex (1977)

“It’s incredible how Poly Styrene, fifty years ago, in this fast paced, danceable visceral track, epitomises the plight of many modern day young people, in the social media age especially. To the point where one’s own reflection, not living up to the desired self image, or validation that comes with the commercial and media attention, invokes an immediate response of violent self harm.... all in a 2 minute 17 second track.”

- As chosen by Joe Sangre, artist and owner of Eighties punk boutique, Pure Sex

48. Linoleum — NOFX (1994)

“One of the first songs that like really changed my world was Linolium by NoFX. But of course, it's hard because I feel like everyone might have a different definition of punk. It’s so subjective.”

- As chosen by Adam Lazarra, frontman of 2000s emo rockers Taking Back Sunday

47. MakeDamnSure — Taking Back Sunday (2006)

"Taking Back Sunday’s - MakeDamnSure, was a track that really helped shape my musical journey, it was the first time I can remember hearing lyrics that made me really feel something other than ‘Oh that’s nice’

"It was a totally new approach to storytelling that I had never witnessed prior to this song. It wasn’t cookie cutter, the toxicity, the rawness and shifts from light to dark really spoke to me. Twenty years later this track is still as current as the day it came out, in my mind!"

- As chosen by rising Australian pop metal stars Melrose Avenue

46. Ain’t Got A Clue — The Lurkers (1978)

Hailing from Uxbridge and Fulham, and proof that literally anyone could pick up an instrument and make a record, The Lurkers caught lightning in a bottle with this Ramones-style foot stomper. A definitive early punk single by the West Londoners, and an important record for label Beggars Banquet (aka Beggars) which would go on to become the home of imprints Rough Trade, XL, and Matador, paving the way for the indie explosion to come.

45. One Chord Wonders — The Adverts (1977)

Not true. The Adverts could play three chords. Just not necessarily in the right order. A John Peel favourite, and an important seminal track for Stiff Records — the eventual home of 2-tone, and organisers of the legendary Stiff Tours.

44. I’m Stranded — The Saints (1977)

They may have been Australian but this debut single from The Saints was a pitch perfect fit for the UK punk scene. Sounds writer Jonh Ingham declared it the "Single of this and every week", with The Saints kickstarting the DIY scene in their native Australia.

43. Orchestra of Wolves — Gallows (2006)

"The riff. The vocals. The absolute chaos of the whole track. It's the kind of song that makes you want to start a fucking riot. This was one of the biggest inspirations during the earliest days of MOSKITO.

"We were obsessed with chasing that same raw, guttural sound that Frank Carter's [Gallows frontman, .ed] producer at the time, Thomas Mitchener, managed to capture so perfectly. Getting to record our first two singles with Thomas was a full-circle moment for us, and he absolutely brought that same intensity into the studio. We've never been shy about our love for Frank and the impact he's had on us as a band. His music has shaped so much of what we do, and in our eyes, he goes down as one of the best to ever do it."

- As chosen by rising British rock ‘Shouty boy band’ MOSKITO

42. Jet Boy, Jet Girl — Elton Motello (1977)

“It’s outrageous, obscene and forces you to dance!”

- As chosen by Harry Martinez, singer from British rock ‘n’ rollers, Split Dogs

41. Right to Work — Chelsea (1977)

One of the major punk singles from ‘77, a rousing chorus with a political punk message, too, addressing youth unemployment, strikes, and economic decay under James Callaghan's Labour government. Chelsea's original line-up featured the soon-to-be-known-as Billy Idol on guitar — the band fractured, with Generation X rising from its ashes.

40. How Will I Rest in Peace If I'm Buried by a Highway?// — KennyHoopla (2020)

"KennyHoopla's 'How Will I Rest in Peace If I'm Buried by a Highway?//' is my favourite punk track. The first time I heard it, it felt unlike anything I'd ever listened to before, yet somehow deeply nostalgic at the same time.

"It captured the same melancholic dreamy atmosphere that bands like Joy Division created but fused with an explosive energy that felt completely fresh and magic. This song even inspired a whole era of PAVÉ's writing. Rather than hiding from feelings of anxiety or uncertainty, it embraces them, releases them, and leaves you feeling lighter by the end of the track. That wave and release of emotion is exactly what punk is about."

- As chosen by Manchester alt rock band PAVÉ vocalist Alayna-Jade

39. Where's Me Jumper? — The Sultans of Ping FC (1992)

“His mother is angry. His brother is angry. His girlfriend is angry. Even the dog. This is not a song about a jumper. This is a song about a man completely alone in the world because he misplaced an item of clothing.”

- As chosen by Otto Rot, one half of art rock-pop-comedy duo, Otto and Astrid

38. Where Have All the Boot Boys Gone? — Slaughter & The Dogs (1978)

Manchester punk legends take no prisoners with this Pistols-inspired rant which sums up the teen tensions of the time, reflecting on the broiling violence of 'suedeheads' and 'skinheads' — a subculture being increasingly being co-opted and hijacked by the far-right National Front political party of the time. There's a touch of glam here, with the band taking inspiration from Bowie, T-Rex and Slade.

37. Emergency — 999 (1978)

Led by lovable Nick Cash, 999 were masters of punk pop, and this is a belter. A huge chart hit on both sides of the Atlantic for the London punk band, it's got as much in common with the likes of Talking Heads as it does Magazine and Buzzcocks. The rest of the band's output set the stage for bands like Blink-182 and Sum 41.

36. The Possibility of Life's Destruction — Discharge (1982)

"AWAP as a band were brought up on punk, hardcore and crossover. Bands like Suicidal Tendencies, Minor Threat , Bad Religion and Dead Kennedys were joined by death metal, thrash and Motorhead in making us think and jump around in equal measure.

"One track that unites us all is by Discharge. The Possibility of Life's Destruction is razor sharp, has the pounding D-Beat that dissects a fucked up 80's world that has not changed 30 years later. Truly seminal and fucking raging."

– As chosen by Matt Mason, singer of British thrash punk band AWAP

35. Sunday Bloody Sunday — U2 (1983)

“I don't even really listen to U2, but I feel like Sunday Bloody Sunday is a pretty fucking great song that's anti-horrible things.”

- As chosen by Joshua Cain, guitarist in emo rock band Motion City Soundtrack

34. Drain the Blood — The Distillers (2003)

Brody Dalle delivers pure gravel-throated fury on a defining anthem of the 2000s punk revival. From the still-astonishing Coral Fang album, it's produced by Gil Norton, famous for his work with Pixes and Foo Fighters. That The Distillers never put out a follow up album is one of modern punk's great tragedies.

33. Shot by Both Sides — Magazine (1978)

Howard Devoto leaves The Buzzcocks and drops a scintillating slice of avant-garde punk, pointing the way to a post-punk future. Angular guitars and intellectual lyrics, but with that same vein of alienation being tapped, it's been covered by Radiohead and acts as a bridge to the new-wave 80s era to come.

32. Warhead — U.K. Subs (1980)

OG punks, led by the indefatigable Charlie Harpergargle razor blades for this dark punk anthem. The Subs play their final gig in 2027, when the frontman hits 83. Someone give this man a knighthood.

31. Understatement — New Found Glory (2002)

“My entry to punk music was pop punk, and specifically the album ‘Sticks and Stones’ by New Found Glory. I was going through a breakup - like, the high school breakup where it hurts you unbelievably - and they really found me. That was my personal breakthrough into that. Understatement was always my favourite track on the album.”

- As chosen by Cody Carson, frontman of Floridian pop punk stars, Set It Off

30. Rebel Girl — Bikini Kill (1993)

The riot grrrl anthem: raw, revolutionary and pure girl power, this is feminist punk at its sharpest. Joan Jett was in the producer's seat for this one — a real torch-passing moment for two generations of women in punk.

29. Five Corporations — Fugazi (1998)

“It’s one of the later Fugazi songs I really love, that’s so fun to listen to. I love it. It’s a fucking great song. I would advise everyone to listen to Fugazi, and to watch the Jem Cohen Fugazi documentary, Instrument.

"It is incredible. School yourselves on Fugazi because we need more Fugazi. Be the Fugazi you want to see in the world.”

- As chosen by Justin Pierre, vocalist of emo rockers Motion City Soundtrack

28. Hanging on the Telephone — The Nerves (1976)

“This is just a perfect, perfect song. Blondie’s cover of it is so good, and to me, it's just like a classic. It’s like pop punk, right? That is such a great song.”

- As chosen by Eric Keen, bassist in US punk rock outfit The Menzingers

This one's not on Spotify, so here's the original '45 version as uploaded to YouTube:

27. Boredom — Buzzcocks (1977)

Before the Buzzcocks went pure punk, this was a mantra for the time. The Deveto-era tune was self pressed in a debut batch of just 1,000 copies, the song an early, self-lacerating parody of the punk movement.

26. Top of The Pops — The Rezillos (1978)

Scotland’s finest (don’t tell The Skids), punk at its most feel-good. There's a B-Movie energy to this scathing attack on the '70s record industry, and the lip-synced era of the BBC's titular Top of the Pops. Fun fact: Guitarist Jo Callis would go on to join The Human League, and write all-time Top of The Pops classic, Don't You Want Me.

25. Come Out and Play — The Offspring (1994)

The song that launched The Offspring into the mainstream, full of anthemic punk chants and powered by that unmistakable “keep ’em separated” refrain (spoken by Jason 'Blackball' McLean, a buddy of the band who was paid $200 and a doughnut for his efforts. Hopefully he got a little more later down the line — the massive radio hit helped turn its parent album Smash into the highest-selling independent label album of all time).

24. Alternative Ulster — Stiff Little Fingers (1979)

“It's a protest song. It's unbelievably catchy; it's gruff… and Stiff Little Fingers are fucking awesome.”

- As chosen by Greg Barnett, vocals in Pennsylvanian punk band The Menzingers

23. Holiday in Cambodia — Dead Kennedys (1980)

A spine-tingling riff, coupled to a searing vocal from Jello Biafra that escalates to a brutal climax. One of the most political bands of the 80's US punk scene, Holiday... sets its sights on the hypocritical liberal college students of the era who couldn't put their protest into action.

22. Sheena Is a Punk Rocker — Ramones (1977)

The Ramones gave punk its own party anthem with this irresistible two-minute blast of bubblegum hooks, teenage rebellion and pure New York cool.

21. Ruby Soho — Rancid (1995)

A huge ’90s punk anthem, with more than a passing nod to OGs The Clash. Underneath the punchy riffs there's a soppy side to this one, with singer Tim Armstrong talking the strains of navigating life on the road while in a relationship.

20. Sound of the Suburbs — The Members (1979)

The definitive (sub)urban anthem — if The Sex Pistols were Soho, The Members were Surrey, giving voice to the boredom felt in commuter towns and middle England.

19. Search and Destroy — Iggy & The Stooges (1973)

A foundational epic that was to inspire punk on both sides of the Atlantic, from the album Raw Power - and produced by none other than David Bowie. It's original mix was so low-fi and visceral as to become legendary (and somewhat self-destructive — considered unlistenable by some quarters, a later remaster revealed Search and Destroy's more nuanced majesty. And it still kicked arse.)

18. This Is Not A Love Song — Public Image Ltd (1984)

"One of my favourite punk songs of all time is Public Image Ltd’s This Is Not a Love Song. It was one of the first punk songs I discovered as a teenager and one of the first tracks I ever learned to play on guitar. But not the original version. The version that first captivated me was this raw live recording from the Rotten to the Core bootleg, where the song feels even more chaotic and twisted.

“It’s John Lydon’s voice, the sarcasm, the aggression and the feeling of someone completely unwilling to play along. To me the song feels like a rejection of the expectations placed on artists and the contradictions of the music industry. I resonate with that a lot… The battle between authenticity and success.

“But beyond that, there is this emotional tension in the way he delivers the vocals that has always resonated with me. There is a sense of detachment, frustration and conflict, the feeling of being trapped in a game where the rules keep changing. So if you interpret the song as a love song, the song resembles the darker side of love; obsession, illusion, the power struggles and the feeling of being caught in a game where nobody really wins."

- As chosen by punk-metal-trap trailblazer, Mimi Barks

17. White Riot — The Clash (1977)

“It's got to be The Clash. They’ve got that real great punk energy. I did a movie called The House of Tomorrow, and in that film my character joins a punk band called The Rash.

"Making that movie and working with one of my best friends now, an actor called Alex Wolff, who's also an incredible musician, introduced me to all sorts of punk music for that whole shoot.”

- As chosen by actor Asa Butterfield

16. Gary Gilmore’s Eyes — The Adverts (1978)

TV Smith’s earworm about a US serial killer probably has the finest final lyric in punk history: 'Gary and his eyes have parted company', documenting the real-life story of US murderer Gary Gilmore, who donated his organs to medical science before his execution. Despite the subject matter, it still made its way to Top of the Pops — and caused a tabloid outcry in the process.

15. Ready Steady Go — Generation X (1978)

The West London punk band that kick started frontman Billy Idol’s firm icon status - Ready Steady Go is fast, fun and full of more energy than you can shake a (Billy Idol-style) fist at.

14. Another Girl Another Planet — The Only Ones (1978)

A perfect combo of punk attitude and power pop romance, driven by one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time. Covered by every good pop-rock band worth their salt (The Replacements' live version might even surpass the original), this one's not only one of the great punk songs, but the best pop songs, period.

13. Anarchy in the UK — Sex Pistols (1977)

Look up punk in any dictionary and we can guarantee you’ll see one thing: a picture of the Sex Pistols. The definitive snarling punk anthem. "I am an Antichrist / I am an anarchist", an opening line for the ages, setting a confrontational, nihilistic tone that challenged 1970s British establishment values. A few days after its release, the band were a last minute replacement for Queen on the prime time Today show, hosted by Bill Grundy on Thames Television. It's a classic TV meltdown, with the Sex Pistols shocking middle-England to its core with their vulgar language and tearaway image — and acting as a wake up call to a generation of TV-glued disaffected youth across the nation.

12. Neat Neat Neat — The Damned (1977)

The second Damned single and another solid gold punk classic. Frantic and fabulous, a breakneck track that showcases drummer Rat Scabies lightning-fast work behind the kit.

11. Cherry Bomb — The Runaways (1976)

A snarling teenage rebel anthem that paved the way for generations of women in punk, it's a tail-end-of-glam clarion call for the punk era just over the horizon. That 'Hello daddy, hello mom / I'm your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!' line? Delivered by the then-15-year-old Cherie Currie, with the song written on the spot for Currie's audition by Joan Jett and Kim Fowley. Madness.

10. Amyl and the Sniffers — Jerkin’ (2024)

The Aussie outfit are arguably the greatest punk band to emerge in at least the past twenty years, and frontwoman Amy Taylor’s shouts of “Keep jerkin' on your squirter / You will never get with me!” are pure punk perfection.

9. Oh Bondage Up Yours — X-Ray Spex (1977)

Wildly original, with a startling vocal from Poly Styrene. Feminist, original and a total punk icon. Spearing the consumer culture, corporate commercialism, and societal expectations placed on young women, X-Ray Spex were true pioneers, a mixed-race, mixed-gender band bringing saxophones, jazz sensibilities and the kitchen sink to the guitar-focussed punk scene.

8. What’s My Age Again? — Blink 182 (1999)

Bratty, ridiculous and insanely catchy — the song that helped pop punk explode into the mainstream. It's tale of arrested development saw them leading the pop punk charge, in no small part thanks to the band's knack for a funny video at the height of MTV's power — this is the one where they're legging it down the street in their birthday suits.

7. Teenage Kicks — The Undertones (1978)

Three minutes of perfectly told teen longing - all in one perfect pop song. The influential DJ John Peel's favourite song ('Teenage dreams so hard to beat' is engraved on his headstone), its lovelorn lyrics an antidote to The Troubles tearing The Undertones' native Northern Ireland apart.

6. Buzzcocks — Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) (1978)

Inspired by a line from Guys & Dolls, Ever Fallen in Love isn’t just a punk classic - it’s clever, and one of the catchiest songs ever written. Bisexual Pete Shelley moves away from punk's nihilism for a heart-on-sleeve lyric about unrequited love and silent longing — written at a time when male sexuality was viewed in mono as simply focussed on 'booze and birds'. There's never been a better song about heartbreak.

5. American Idiot — Green Day (2004)

The rousing punk anthem spurred a whole new generation of punks, with just as much attitude… and even catchier riffs. A challenge to the dim-witted George Bush Jr. presidency, the Iraq War and sensationalised news cycle, it reinvigorated the band, seeing music fans re-evaluate Green Day as no mere pop-punkers, but as the politically-charged punk flag bearers of the era.

4. Blitzkrieg Bop — Ramones (1976)

“Oh gosh, it’s so fun! I feel like my favourite punk songs started when I played Guitar Hero as a kid - which is weirdly what got me into like rock music initially. That was kind of my first exposure to music.”

- As chosen by US metal singer Scene Queen

3. God Save The Queen — Sex Pistols (1977)

“For me, the greatest punk record of all time is the Sex Pistols' 1977 single God Save the Queen. I believe you should always judge a record by its cover, and Jamie Reid's artwork has become one of the most iconic record sleeves ever created.

“While fiercely anti-establishment, it cleverly uses the Queen's portrait and the Union Jack, giving it an unmistakably British identity. These striking graphics spoke to me personally and perfectly captured a defining moment in British history. The artwork reflects the anger, energy, and attitude of the music itself, becoming a powerful symbol of youth rebellion and the punk movement.”

- As chosen by Endless, acclaimed artist famed for his punk window takeover for Liberty

2. London Calling — The Clash (1979)

“Punk is the textbook of my life. It’s my Bible. Choosing one song is tough, but for me, London Calling is the best. It doesn’t sound like punk - that’s why I love it!”

As chosen by Japanese metal band, SiM

1. New Rose — The Damned (1976)

“The first British punk single, and still the best, New Rose arrived with a bang in October ‘76, months before the Pistols ‘Anarchy…’ made its debut, in the process creating a template for hundreds of bands to follow. It’s two minutes of pure, perfect, punk adrenalin. Rat Scabies’ machine gun drumming, Brian James’ chopping guitar, Captain Sensible’s bouncing bass and Dave Vanian’s rollercoaster vocal, captured in all their chaotic live brilliance by producer Nick Lowe.

“The first time I heard vampire wannabe Dave Vanian ask ‘Is she really going out with him?’ it was instant inspiration. I knew I had to form a band - or write a fanzine. I chose the latter. Unlike the Pistols, The Damned weren’t interested in anarchy or monarchy. They were rock ‘n’ roll funsters. Suddenly my Pink Floyd records sounded very old. New Rose grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, and 50 years later, it still hasn’t let go.”

- As chosen by Steve Keaton (nee May), influential former Sounds magazine punk journalist, and publisher of Tales of Dayglow fanzine

• 50 years of punk: A Shortlist celebration

On November 6th 1975 in a half-empty London art college, four snarling teens took to the stage and changed music forever. Building on Reggae’s rebellious spirit, borrowing MC5’s energy and channelling The Velvet Underground’s spiky abrasion, these caustic kids called themselves The Sex Pistols.

Their snarling, uniquely scrappy sound immediately turned heads - and it was swiftly labelled ‘punk’. Inspiring The Buzzcocks, The Clash and The Damned to dash out and pick up guitars, The Pistols’ slimy sonic concoction cut distortion-soaked anthems with intoxicatingly unadulterated London swagger.

Fifty years later, the UK punk scene’s influence is still inescapable. Touching everything from fashion to activism, spawning multiple musical subgenres, and with its DIY ethos embedded into the DNA of hip hop and even indie filmmaking, the ‘70s punk explosion didn't just birth a genre – it kickstarted a creative revolution.

So rather than look backwards ourselves, we handed the mic to five musicians who've lived with punk's influence for decades. From their favourite UK punk tracks to the modern London scene and the movement's enduring legacy, here's what they had to say. Happy 50th, punk - here’s to another 50 years of power chords, politics and provocation.

Steve Sladkowski (PUP)

• Standout UK punk track: "I'm So Bored With The USA" – The Clash

PUP have spent the last decade cementing themselves as one of modern punk's most vital bands, carrying the genre's DIY spirit from Toronto dive bars to festival main stages around the world.

For guitarist Steve Sladkowski, though, it all starts with Britain. From discovering his dad's Clash records as a kid to standing on the legendary Roundhouse stage himself, he explains why London's punk legacy still casts a long shadow over music today.

What was your first memory of hearing UK punk?

Steve Sladkowski: My Dad! I found his record collection when I was a kid, and The Clash and The Sex Pistols were tucked alongside other UK new wave stuff like Elvis Costello, XTC and Squeeze.

What does the phrase 'London punk' mean to you?

Sladkowski: LLondon punk is anti-capitalist and cosmopolitan. It understands the indelible influence of the Windrush Generation on the aesthetics of punk. It’s The Roundhouse and Vivienne Westwood and the Brixton Riots. It rules.

Who are the most important UK punk band?

Sladkowski: The Clash.

How has the London punk scene influenced you?

Sladkowski: PUP headlined the Roundhouse. Where the London Calling album cover photo was taken. Are you fucking kidding me?!

What do you think of the London punk scene today?

Sladkowski: It’s dynamic and noisy and progressive and endlessly fascinating. Bob Vylan, ‘nuff said.

It's now been 50 years since the UK punk explosion. What do you think is its greatest legacy?

Sladkowski: Class and racial solidarity scares power.

Steph Carter (Former Gallows guitarist)

• Standout UK punk track: "Pretty Vacant" – Sex Pistols

Steph Carter has lived punk from almost every angle imaginable. He helped define one of Britain's fiercest hardcore bands with Gallows before taking that same DIY philosophy into one of music's biggest brands as the Director of Culture Marketing for Marshall. For Carter, punk's greatest achievement wasn't simply changing music; it rewrote the rules for culture, creativity and self-expression.

What was your first memory of hearing UK punk?

Steph Carter: Hearing a friend’s band cover Pretty Vacant at school. I knew the song already, but seeing it played live like that really connected for me - it had an energy that felt different. That moment sent me down a rabbit hole, discovering the original bands and everything that came with them.

Who is your favourite band from the original era of British punk?

Carter: I’ve always loved The Clash - they’re a very close second - but for me, it has to be the Sex Pistols. ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ is such a seminal record. There’s something about Steve Jones’ guitar playing that really stands out - it’s deceptively simple, but incredibly intentional. Every note feels like it’s there for a reason. Having had the chance to play through Steve’s rig myself, it really struck me that no one quite sounds like him. The moment he picks up a guitar, it’s instantly recognisable.

What does the phrase 'London punk' mean to you?

Carter: Cultural impact. It goes beyond the music: it’s art, fashion, and activism all rolled into one. It’s rooted in the bands that kick-started the genre, but just as importantly, it’s about the path they created for everyone who’s followed.

How has the London punk scene influenced you?

Carter: The DIY ethos is something that’s always been ingrained in me. In every band I’ve played in, I’ve been involved in recording and producing the music in some shape or form. When we were making ‘Grey Britain’, Frank and I actually recorded all the vocals in our mums’ house - we drilled a hole through the wall between our rooms, used one as a live room and the other as a control room. Then there’s the performance side - there’s a real freedom in the energy of playing punk rock. It’s raw, immediate, and completely honest.

What do you think of the London punk scene today?

Carter: The familiar stereotypes, like punks hanging out on a bridge in Camden, are still there, but the scene has moved forward. What really stands out today is the strength of new music and how it continues to push boundaries. Punk isn’t just a genre, it’s an attitude. There’s a new generation coming through that’s challenging the status quo. With everything happening in the world, there’s no shortage of fuel, and punk remains a powerful platform for bands to stand up, speak out, and say something that matters.

What's your favourite moment in punk history?

Carter: For me, it’s about how punk constantly defies expectations - how bands take something raw and make it resonate with bigger and bigger audiences. Punk keeps reinventing itself, pushing beyond what anyone thinks it can be. There isn’t a defining moment in punk history, because the best one hasn’t happened yet.

Charlie Longman (Clobber)

• Standout UK punk track: “That’s like picking a favourite strand of fucking hair! Off the top of my head: ‘Clampdown’ - The Clash …NO! ‘Love Song’ The Damned… Oh, fuck off.”

Nobody in this feature embodies punk's refusal to self-edit quite like Charlie Longman. The Clobber frontman delivers equal parts humour, honesty and chaos, bouncing from the Sex Pistols' cultural impact to modern political punk without ever sounding rehearsed. If anyone proves punk hasn't lost its bite after 50 years, it's him.

What was your first memory of hearing UK punk?

Charlie Longman: My mum and dad used to watch a weekly documentary series called “I heart the 1970s’. Every week was about a different year from the ‘70s. The first exposure I ever had to punk was 6 years old watching the episode that covered the Sex Pistols. I was terrified but excited by them. I had no interest in music really before that but that half hour of telly blew my fucking brain open. Ugly, can’t play, dress like a cunt. Well done. Punk is for you!

Who are the most important UK punk band?

Longman: Of all time? The Sex Pistols. Opinions on them aside, the legacy of that band is the reason the world knows about punk and the reason you’re writing this article. Without the Bill Grundy interview, the story of Sid’s death and the whole saga I truly don’t think it would have evolved beyond the grassroots. People paying to go see them now with Frank Carter on vocals is a testament to that as well.

Right now? The Menstrual Cramps. That band take no prisoners, never compromise, talk about stuff they actually fucking live and do grass roots political movements without showboating or for clout.

What does the phrase 'London punk' mean to you?

Longman: A white guy with dreadlocks in a Subhumans T shirt asking me for guestlist because he spent all his money on K and Buckfast.

It's now been 50 years since the UK punk explosion. What do you think is its greatest legacy?

Longman: That there is a punk scene in any corner of the globe. Kids from different walks of life are taking it in cool new directions every day. It’s the voice of the revolution, the party, the struggle, the pub, the terraces, the attitude behind your favourite movie or comic book series. It’s the reason you had friends in secondary school and the reason you left your hometown. It never sleeps and it keeps on getting better.

Ian Shelton (Militarie Gun)

• Standout UK punk track: "Mannequin" – Wire

Few modern hardcore bands have bridged the gap between melody and mayhem quite like Militarie Gun. But for frontman Ian Shelton, that balancing act didn't start in California—it started with Britain's first wave of punk.

From The Adicts to Wire, Shelton explains why UK punk's humour, hooks and refusal to play by the rules still influence everything his band does today.

Who is your favourite band from the original era of British punk?

Ian Shelton: The Addicts. I saw them when I was in eighth grade and they're one of my favourite bands of all time. The singer [Keith Warren] wears face paint inspired by A Clockwork Orange and I was obsessed with that film as a teenager. When you're a fucked up kid in a small town getting in fights with other kids, you watch a movie like Clockwork Orange and it really resonates with you that they're going down a bad path. The parallels of that film to punk, and the embrace of it in punk by The Addicts I thought was really cool. I think they're kind of brushed under the rug as far as the first wave of punk goes.

How has the UK punk scene influenced you?

Shelton: Something that The Addicts do that we do as well is have a dark subject matter over a really poppy song. A song like ‘Easy Way Out’ is so catchy, but it's about killing yourself. It's that pairing of dark subject matter and poppy melody that I think the sex Pistols also do well …It’s the British humour that goes with it. It's very tongue in cheek -very aggressive if you're not on the inside of it - and that’s something that I really respond to.

What do you think is UK punk's greatest legacy?

Shelton: The wit and biting nature of it. The sense that you're not involved, the ambiguous ‘you’ - pointing at the world and saying that you are not one of us. I think that's great!

What do you think of the London punk scene today?

Shelton: We love bands like Chubby and the gang and UK punk as a whole because it just gives you a certain feeling. I remember hearing The Flex and Violent Reaction, and falling in love with those bands really quickly, because it’s unmitigated aggression paired with the littlest bit of melody. That’s very UK punk to me. Another big part of UK punk that bleeds over into my life is the tradition of Oi. I think that the current moment of Oi influenced punk and hardcore is completely due to the UK punk scene.

What does the phrase 'London punk' mean to you?

Shelton: It means melody, it means rock and roll, it means protest - and at its core - upsetting people.

Daniel P Carter (BBC Radio 1 Rock Show host, and member of Reclus.e, A, Krokodil, and Bloodhound Gang)

• Standout UK punk track: "London Is The Reason" – Gallows

For nearly two decades, Daniel P Carter has been one of Britain's loudest advocates for alternative music.

Whether introducing listeners to tomorrow's breakthrough bands on the Radio 1 Rock Show or performing himself, he's watched punk evolve without ever losing sight of what made it special in the first place. Fifty years on, he believes its influence stretches further than ever.

Who is your favourite band from the original era of British punk?

Daniel P Carter: I’d probably say The Damned. I love that they have such a broad palette musically, especially with the darker, gothier stuff. I think you can really hear their influence on a bunch of early US Hardcore bands as well, which rules. I would also maybe add as a caveat that I am partial to the new incarnation of the Sex Pistols with Frank Carter fronting it.

What's your favourite moment in punk history?

Carter: Ian MacKaye [Minor Threat] hearing ‘Expensive Sound’ by [British punk band] Empire for the first time.

What does the phrase 'London punk' mean to you?

Carter: I guess it’s weird how certain cities have massive music scenes attached to them. Be it Seattle with Grunge, Berlin with Krautrock, Kingston with Ska and Reggae, Manchester with baggy, but Punk just feels tied to London. Even though there’s probably a bunch of older New Yorkers who would have something to say about that…

It's now been 50 years since the UK punk explosion. What do you think is its greatest legacy?

Carter: That to this day it’s still influencing musicians, artists, activists, designers and creatives the world over.

Reclus.e play Outbreak London August 23rd alongside Deftones, AFI, Interpol and more

• 50 years of punk: A Shortlist celebration

Half a century ago, punk blew the doors off popular music. To mark the genre’s 50th anniversary, Shortlist is diving deep into the archives, bringing back classic conversations with the trailblazers who led the rebellion.

Here we're revisiting an incredible chat with the high priestess of New York punk, Patti Smith, as she runs through the soundtrack of her life, in her own words.

Playlists at the ready...

As a singer, songwriter and poet, few artists have been as influential or iconic as Patti Smith.

Launched into the wider consciousness with her legendary record Horses, she played a huge part in defining the punk rock movement of the mid-70s. Since then she has worked with a variety of artists, inspired another generation and been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

We spoke to Patti to discover her Ultimate Playlist. Read on for some great selections, and the fascinating stories behind them.

Favourite Movie Soundtrack Song

"Well that I had trouble with because I tend to like the music in a song and I had to really go back to think of songs that I like — like Shenandoah or something from old movies, or High Noon - Do Not Forsake Me O My Darlin

"But in modern soundtracks maybe like the Naked Lunch soundtrack or Philip Glass's Mishima, or the soundtrack to Melancholia, which has a lot of music from Tristan and Isolde.

"I quite like instrumental tracks. I'm friends with Philip and I often perform with him. But just as a fan the Mishima soundtrack is, I think, one of his great pieces."

Favourite Sad Song

"There are so many beautiful sad songs, but I think Skeeter Davis' End of the World. To me it expresses all young girls' heartbreak, that we've all experienced.

"I'm just speaking as a female, but there's something so plaintive and so sincere about her delivery and I used to listen to it when I was a young girl, probably crying over a boy that I liked in 11th grade. Even when I hear it now it produces a pain."

Favourite Dance Track

"Again, I would have to go back —I think Heatwave by Martha and The Vandellas. I love to dance to that.

"I love to dance, y'know? To all different eras — I just have to find the right rhythm, but if I find the right rhythm I can just dance all night. But that's a song when I think of, just total abandon as a teenager, that was a great song to dance to."

Favourite Song That No One Else Has Heard Of

"Two songs come to my mind. One is a song by a Scottish girl, it's called John Anderson. It's a little song that a woman is singing about her husband who is now old, but was once beautiful. The other song that I think of is If I Can't Have You by Etta & Harvey. Etta James used to sing with Harvey Fuqua and it's an awesome song.

"No one knows about it — I've asked a million people. There's just something so... It's a very sensual, badass song!"

"And another! It's called Today's the Day by Maureen Gray. This song is, for me, one of the greatest songs, a young teenage girl singing it, it's just the exuberance of this song. I used to dance to it when I was like 15.

"When I hear that song, I have to stop and dance, it's incredible. I forgot about it for years and then I recently told my daughter about it, I said 'wanna hear a great song?' And I found it on YouTube and I leapt up and started dancing and she went 'Mommy!' I was just so excited to hear it.

"What's beautiful about this song is she's singing about her boyfriend, who is leaving — I don't know if he was drafted or what, because there were a lot of songs when I was a teenager about boys going off to Korea or then Vietnam. But she's singing it — 'Today's the day that you're going away' — with such exuberance, but she's heartbroken."

Favourite Wedding Song

"I was thinking about that and I could say something more esoteric — at my wedding we played very classical things like the music to Tristan and Isolde. But Today I Met The Boy I'm Gonna Marry is such a great song. I think Darlene Love sings it, it's such a nice little song."

"When I think about it, those are the kind of songs....all those Darlene Love songs or a song like He's a Rebel. Because for me, when I think of my husband, when he was young, when we first met, that song suited him. He's a rebel — and I would just as much like to hear that at my wedding, because I married my rebel."

Favourite Modern Song

"I'm really not so connected with current music. I don't know what's around because I get hooked on a song for a long time — like I was hooked on Rolling In the Deep for a year, and it was all I listened to. And the last song I was hooked on was Stay by Rihanna, I love this song, and I'm still listening to it.

"When I'm hooked on a song it's usually a very popular song that I'll hear on the radio, or I'll hear in a store and I'll go 'What's that?' And it's usually a song that, as a singer, I relate to. I don't really buy that many records, because I'm still listening to Jimi Hendrix!

"Being devoted to a certain singer or a certain group is one of the joys, I think, of being young. At this time in my life I have so much work I'm doing, so many things I'm preoccupied with, so I don't find myself devoted to new bands — it doesn't mean I don't like them, it's just that I'm busy with my own work. So I'm more likely to be seduced by a certain song on the radio.

And I loved this little song Stay — the quality of her voice is so touching — it harks back to these 60s R&B songs we've been talking about, she has that quality in her voice. Usually I'm attracted to a female voice, like the first time I heard Amy Winehouse, I didn't know who that was and I thought 'That is a voice, that is a very, very special voice' and certainly if Amy was still here, I'd be saying 'Whatever Amy is singing'.

"Also, Neil Young has a new album and there's two songs on it. One is Love and Only Love — that's song's awesome. But the song I really love is Walk Like A Giant. I toured a bit with Neil so I got to hear it live — I actually bought the record of this album.

"This one particular song, it's like a song that speaks for his generation — which was also my late husband's generation because Fred played with the MC5, they were a very political band, they wanted to change the world. I'm really a 70s artist, even though Neil and I are the same age, I started later in the 70s. But when they were teenagers, people like Fred and Neil were creating our cultural voice and this song is so deeply touching. He's just like 'I wanna walk like a giant'. To me, I interpret it as Neil remembering that feeling of when you're young and you feel like you can change the world, you're a young giant. And then you suffer so many setbacks and you're trampled upon and Neil's standing up again and saying 'I'm not gonna sit back', he's reclaiming this sensation and this mission.

"So it's quite great. Not the kind of the song you're going to hear on the radio a lot, but it's current and it's relevant and wonderful."

Favourite Song From Your Childhood

"When I was a little girl, like any child I listened to songs like Big Rock Candy Mountain — these songs that were popular — Ugly Duckling... y'know, children's songs. But I remember quite clearly being about 5 or 6 years old and hearing, while walking with my mother to Bible school and some teenage boys were playing a record on a record player outside, The Girl Can't Help It by Little Richard.

"And I was really just 5 or 6 and... I don't know what happened - I can still feel it, even though it happened like, what, '62, 60..some years ago? I let go of my mother's hand and just ran toward the record player.

"This song, it just connected with me. Something about the rawness. I didn't know rock 'n' roll, rock 'n' roll was still evolving, I didn't even know the word rock 'n' roll, but that made a huge impression on me."

"The other song that I deeply connect with my childhood is the Aria Un Bel Di from Madame Butterfly.

"The first time I heard that on the radio I was around 7, and I had the same experience. The same intense sense of recognition. I've always thought that interesting, that the two songs that so deeply attracted to me, both have strong vocals: the passion and beauty of Un Bel Di and just the raw energy of Little Richard. These were the two poles that attracted me as a child."

Favourite Lyric From A Song

"There's a million of 'em, so it would change, like 10 minutes from now! So I didn't know how to answer this. It's so hard because every Bob Dylan lyric in the world is running through my head — 'I got nothing, Ma, to live up to' — what a great line. And then I think about 'Nothing is real and nothing to get hung up about' from Strawberry Fields, I just love that."

"But maybe on the other side — because they're two dark lyrics — my favourite, if I had to take a lyric and put it on my tombstone, I would take Jimi Hendrix, 'Hooray I awake from yesterday'.

"Every day I think of that line. It gives me hope, it also reinforces how wonderful it is to be alive, no matter how rough things are. I often think that when I wake up — sometimes I have aches and pains, or a little headache, or I feel down or something. I think y'know, 'you're alive — hooray I wake from yesterday'.

"It's from my favourite Jimi Hendrix song, 1983...A Merman I Should Turn To Be. It's my favourite song I think — if I had to only pick one song in the world, it would be that. It also has the line which I took and borrowed for Horses: 'It's much too bad that our friends can't be with us today.' That's from that song."

Favourite One-Hit Wonder

"So many songs I have loved, I never knew anything else that the artist ever did — like My Hero by The Blue Notes, I Love You Truly, Dead Man Stroll or Endless Sleep. There's probably more modern ones that I like, because even though I don't write hits myself, if I could write them I would! What's more wonderful than a song that everybody loves and everybody wants to dance to?

"I came from being a lower middle class kid in Southern New Jersey — where would we be without our songs? Without the radio, without the songs that we danced to that spoke to us?

"I went a certain path, or I have the ability to improvise, or maybe write songs that are interesting. Hopefully they're compelling or make people think — but I don't have that Smokey Robinson gift. It's a true gift, people that write songs that touch the public consciousness, that just connect with them, it's a different kind of artistry and I marvel at that. Even if you only write one hit though, it's pretty great! You write one hit, you can live your whole life on that hit!"

Favourite Song From Your Own Music

"That's difficult, because I have parallel thoughts about that. I have to say though, the pieces I'm most proud of are usually the improvisation pieces. On almost every record there's been one song that's been completely improvised. Whether it's Birdland, Radio Baghdad or Gandhi, or Constantine's Dream. I would be more likely to gravitate toward them.

"It's funny because I rarely listen to my own records. Sometimes it's hard to listen to one's own voice — you think 'I'd rather be listening to someone else's voice'. But I do them with everything that I have to give. I'd rather other people choose their favourite track! But I'm proud of our records, we do the best we can.

"I like the improvised songs, because since I don't write hits — I don't do that, I don't know how to do that — I know that's something I can do. I can go into a studio and be concerned about the Bush administration going into Baghdad and create a 14 minute improvisation in Radio Baghdad. I study, contemplate and think about these things and then we offer an improvisation. I'm proud of that because that's something that we do, that's our speciality."

• 50 years of punk: A Shortlist celebration

Shortlist is going full punk this week to celebrate 50 years of music with raw power. We’re digging into our archives to share some of our favourite past chats with the legendary artists who made it happen.

Here we're casting our minds back to the time Shortlist caught up with the inimitable Iggy Pop and Josh Homme back in 2016, as the pair team up for Iggy's twilight-years extraordinary album, Post Pop Depression...

The name of the new Iggy Pop album is Post Pop Depression. This title originates from a phrase conjured up by Queens Of The Stone Age/sometime Dead Weather member Dean Fertita – recruited by QOTSA leader Josh Homme, alongside Arctic Monkeys’ Matt Helders, to make the record – to describe how he felt once it was completed and his time working with the planet’s greatest living rock star was over.

Now, after a morning spent in the company of Iggy Pop, I have to say I know how he feels. Because Iggy Pop is simply outrageously good company: genial, super-intelligent, very, very witty and as up and inspired as he has been in years. Rightly so, as the 17th Iggy Pop album can sit alongside his finest work. And that, obviously, is no mean feat.

Sitting in a New York hotel suite with Josh Homme – still buzzing about his role as the principal architect of this project – Iggy is describing the package he FedExed to Homme back in 2014, with the intention of getting the ball rolling.

In it was: a detailed description of how his classic, Bowie-produced Berlin period albums The Idiot and Lust For Life were made; an accompanying piece, “sort of in the style of the scene where Sam Jackson and Travolta are going down the street talking about the Royale with cheese”, that he called ‘German Trivia’ (“They have something in German called a schwanzdreger – literally a tail dragger – and it means ‘womaniser’!”); then some pages of poetry, about things such as Iggy’s obsession with chairs (“I have 34. I’ve had them longer than any of my human friends. So I make a habit of sitting in each one once a day”); and finally “vignettes of sexual encounters I can remember”.

“One of those that I didn’t send you,” Iggy says, memory tweaked, addressing Homme now, “was called ‘Stella’. It was about my night with a Harvard PhD, in a pink mini skirt, who was on LSD…” We’ve all been there, haven’t we?

“It was one of those old hotels in Chicago, where the door was this thick [indicates an extremely thick door]. She got a little too wild on her way out of the room, and she slammed it on her finger. Lost the last joint. So now [again addressing Homme], you’d know: what do you do?”

Homme waits for the answer to this rhetorical question.

“You call the bass player!” Pop grins, rising to a giggle. “Admit it, that’s what you do! Tour manager? Too heavy. But the bass player’s always the guy in the band who kind of takes care of people, the sensible, OK kind of guy.”

“So anyway,” he continues, “it was all stuff like that in there.”

WAITING ON A HERO

Homme, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn, was a huge Iggy Pop and Stooges fan long before he was receiving parcels from him. “When I heard that stuff, it changed everything for me,” he says. “It’s like, if you like that, you’re part of a club. And it ain’t your parents’ club. It’s the counterculture of the counterculture.”

Pop, for his part, recalls a mid-Noughties festival in Italy at which both QOTSA and the Stooges were playing. Both bands got less-than-enthusiastic receptions from the crowd (Homme: “They were yelling, ‘LINKIN PARK!’ during both our sets!”), but it made a significant impression on Iggy. “They played, and I was sh*tting,” he remembers. “I didn't want to follow them, it was too good. All I could do, I went over to their dressing room and said, ‘IT’STOOF*CKIN’GOOD!’ and then I slammed the door, and left.”

Homme: “We were all like, ‘Sh*t. Wait… that’s good, right?’”

It was good. It took time, but Homme’s phone pinged a couple of years ago with a text (“I thought someone was pulling a prank for the first couple of minutes,” he says). Some back and forth ensued, some long conversations were had, and the aforementioned package was sent. Josh called Arctic Monkey Helders (“I was like, ‘Yeah, fine… please!’”), and bandmate Fertita (“I just had this white flash in front of my eyes, like, I can’t even believe I’m hearing this”), and after some more time Iggy Pop – having bought his own plane ticket – turned up at Josh Homme’s Joshua Tree residential studio in the desert, holdall in hand, and work began.

It didn’t take long. The nine songs on the album were completed in two sessions of about 10 to 12 days each, beginning with the sultry, ominous Break Into Your Heart and ending with the slow build into a climatic explosion of Paraguay, which finds Pop freestyling about “the concept of taking a laptop, and then it’s going down in your body through your gizzard. And then you’re gonna digest it and sh*t it out.”

The three non-Iggy members of this troupe all confess to being intimidated by the prospect of working with such a hero, but this was overcome by all of them waking up together, eating breakfast together, walking over to the studio together, walking back to dinner together, and watching DVDs together. Just like a proper gang. “There was this trust and comfort going into it,” notes Helders. “I think if we had shown up and just started playing right away it would have been different.”

And that, for ages, was that. Homme did some mastering, and they sat on it. No one else other than the four of them knew about this very, very special record they had created. Incredible really, in this day and age. “It was wonderful to have this thing that people didn’t know about,” Homme says. “Because people will know, but to hold on to it for a while was amazing. At one point, Iggy said, ‘Maybe this just shouldn’t come out at all.’ And I thought… OK!”

Pop: “I don’t look forward to the accountants, lawyers, managers, the dude from the record company, the critic and the f*cking… just all that. It’s like, ‘F*ck you all, I don’t want you to hear it!’”

Fortunately, Iggy Pop is grinning when he says this, like he knows that really, the world had to hear Post Pop Depression. There has been talk – from him – that it might be his last album. And if so, then it’s one hell of a sign-off. But Homme has a far better way of putting it.

“This is not goodbye,” he says. “This is: ‘Hello, motherf*cker!’”

POP BACK TO LIFE

It’s not difficult to see why this relationship has borne such fruit. For all that Homme is clearly a long-time superfan, the feeling is reciprocated. “I think Josh’s talent is such as a musician that he could play with Stevie Wonder,” Iggy Pop says. “And if he wants to play with Led Zeppelin, he can do that too.”

But watching these two men today laughing away at each other’s stories, it’s clear that this is a bond born out of much more than just a mutual appreciation. It’s based around more, even, that what Homme describes as a shared love of “primitivism, mixed with a love of cabaret, drama and the stark utilitarianism of Germany”. It’s that they are both still in love with the idea of diving into the unknown, and seeing what happens. “

"Most people, once they hit 60 and they’ve got some bucks,” says Iggy, “are not gonna put themselves in this situation, where you’re testing yourself and you’re not sure if you can handle it. But with this, I kind of wanted to see what I could do. I wanted to prove something to myself.”

“People build up their walls to protect themselves and keep themselves in,” says Homme, “But Iggy is more like ‘Let’s go for it!’

And that is the actual definition of being wise. He is one of the king risk-takers of all time. And as someone else who likes to take risks, I know that if you risk nothing you’ll get nothing. Playing it safe equals death. So there’s no reason not to throw yourself off the cliff.”

Josh Homme and Iggy Pop look at each other, risks now taken, risks having paid off in style. And then they start laughing.

• 50 years of punk: A Shortlist celebration

We’re celebrating 50 years of punk this week at Shortlist, and digging through the archives for our favourite chats with the pogo’ing pioneers of the genre.

Here, we’re revisiting a 2014 chat with the original punk poet and sartorialist extraordinaire John Cooper Clarke. From inspiring the Arctic Monkeys to encounters with Lou Reed, the man’s lived.

Read on to take a trip through Chickentown…

You started out supporting punk bands in the Seventies. That must have been a pretty rowdy atmosphere for a poet…

Punk gigs were a doddle compared to working men’s clubs. Punk came from the arty end of the spectrum: the first Pistols gig was at Saint Martins College. Nothing was as bad as Glasgow working men’s clubs for hostility. I didn’t do any favours calling myself a poet; I just got people swearing at me. But my biggest enemy isn’t hostility; it’s indifference.

Do you still get heckled at gigs nowadays?

Doesn’t happen. Why would you pay those ticket prices to stop somebody doing the thing you’ve paid to see them do? It wouldn’t make sense in today’s economic climate [laughs]. The recession has made heckling a luxury that nobody can afford.

There must have been a few wild nights out with the punk bands…

I remember a 12-hour pre-match drinking session in Finsbury Park with John [Lydon] and his posse. It was before Arsenal vs Spurs. We had a lock-in. I dropped off a few times, we all did.

What are you working on at the moment? Can you give us a snippet of any new poems?

I’m working on something called ‘Anger Manager’. [Recites] “I woke up in town, can’t expand/On the empty bottle in both of my hands/I got reasons but they’re never gonna stand/Anger manager!/Anger manager!” You know, I’ve never been more prolific than I am right now. It’s like a sickness; everything’s got a poem in it.

Is it true Arctic Monkeys stuck with their name because you said you liked it at an early gig?

I wouldn’t go that far. I was playing the Boardwalk in Sheffield, and they came to see me after the gig. I heard the name ‘Arctic Monkeys’ and thought, “Do I know them?” Such a good name you thought you already knew it.

The band adapted your poem ‘I Wanna Be Yours’. What do you think of the track?

Fantastic. [Alex Turner] transformed it from a throwaway poem into a moving love ballad. High point of the album, if I say so myself. Alex’s hair’s good now. Terrific quiffage.

Speaking of hair, do you still get mistaken for Ronnie Wood?

All the time. I ran into Ron recently. I told him, “I’ve been your unpaid decoy for 25 years. It’s payback time.” We had a photo together. Spot the difference [laughs].

It takes a lot of work for me to look this bad [laughs]. Tell you what, though, Johnny Depp owes me one after Edward Scissorhands. But I’ll tell you where I got this look from: one picture. Keith Richards on the steps of Chichester Crown Court, 1967. Black four-button jacket, pin-striped trousers, white shirt fastened to the neck, no tie. He’s the dude, Keith.

You’ve spoken in the past about your admiration for the old Labour party. What do you make of the coalition?

They’re not fit for purpose. A coalition government is, by its very nature, anti-democratic. It’s a situation nobody voted for. But who else is there? Ed Miliband? He’s a fucking nutter. There are no normal people in politics. I’d like to see a return to adversarial politics. What happened to the class war? Everybody thinks they’re fucking middle class now and they’re entitled to live in the leafy suburbs.

You claimed you didn’t write for 10 years while you were using heroin. Is it a myth about it being a ‘creative’ drug?

It’s deadening. It’s a painkiller, innit, so it puts the kibosh on any extreme discomfort, but in the process, the baby gets chucked out with the bathwater. The true story of heroin has never been put better than in Lou Reed’s song Heroin. That tells you what’s great about it, and the destructive side.

Did you know Lou?

I met him once in New York. He was blagging on my guest list, actually. I was happy to oblige. He’d just got married, so he showed me his wedding photos.

Do you think we’re missing rock stars like Lou Reed these days? People talk about One Direction and Justin Bieber being the closest thing to the Beatles and the Stones…

Look, if you set a load of teenage boys free, they’re always going to get into trouble. I don’t see that ever changing. There was a saying at Narcotics Anonymous: ‘If you hang around the barber long enough, you’re gonna get your hair cut.’ The Beatles weren’t the lovable mop-tops they were painted to be. They were the mum-and-dad choice in contrast to the outlaw Rolling Stones, but when the Stones were at grammar school, the Beatles were in Hamburg, robbing drunks, taking drugs and fucking whores [laughs].

How are you with technology? Do you send emails?

No, no. The reason I haven’t got a computer is because I know how good they are. You shouldn’t give an obsessive type a computer. If you bought me a computer, you’d find me dead six weeks later, under a pile of pizza boxes. I’d watch Elvis videos for the rest of my short, morbidly obese life [laughs]. It’s computer or career, for me.

• 50 years of punk: A Shortlist celebration

London Stadium plans to refocus its efforts, to bring us more concerts and fewer sports events in the future.

The stadium, which is the home ground of West Ham United, currently loses £19 million a year according to chair Lyn Garner.

London Stadium’s current deal allows it to host just 10 non-sport-related events a year, and 87 sporting ones. But it is seeking to change things up to allow for 24 concerts a year and 70 sports events.

It had a particulaly barren year for concerts in 2025, though, with just two concert dates in the calendar: June 6th with Olivia Dean, CMAT and Sam Fender. And June 28th with an Iron Maiden headliner show.

This year so far we’ve had a couple of Take That shows, a couple of Metallica ones. But London Stadium is still a way off its aim to become one of the major large-scale music destinations in the capital.

London Stadium has capacity for up to 80,000 attendees for concerts, meaning it’s not that far off the 90,000 Wembley Stadium. This year that rival stadium has held massive Bruno Mars, My Chemical Romance and Harry Styles concert series, as well as its share of Oasis gigs in 2025.

The pressure on London Stadium has only been increased by West Ham’s relegation from the Premier League to the Championship, which will see the venue lose more than half its £4.6 million annual rent from the club, according to the BBC. However, West Ham will continue to play at the stadium with the same capacity on tap.

As the Standard noted in a recent editorial, London is going through a something of a large-scale music event boom — one estimated to bring in £2.7 billion to the city this year according to the Major of London’s office.

Despite this, though, there are currently no future music events listed for London Stadium at present. The last was Metallica on 5th July. We’ll be on the lookout for announcements of upcoming shows.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Need something to do this upcoming Bank Holiday weekend? South London's Battersea Park is holding a series of family-friendly concerts, and the full programme has just been announced.

The Battersea Park in Concert series returns this year with four days of performances, from 28th to 31st August.

Weather-permitting, it’s a super-chilled day out that, unlike the average London day festival, welcomes you to bring your own food and drink. Part of the pitch is it’s the ideal spot for a picnic, with music to enjoy in the background.

There will, of course, be food and drinks stalls, should you not want to bring your own picnic kit.

Here are the acts we’re getting on those four days:

• 28th August: Jeremy Loops, with the London African Gospel Choir performing Paul Simon’s Graceland
• 29th August: Pop Symphonic with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra
• 30th August: Movies & Musicals with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, plus The Bluejays
• 31st August: Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Orchestra and The Amy Winehouse Band

Tickets cost £48.38 to £49.45 for adults, depending on the day you pick. Family tickets are available too, for around £120-130. This provides access for two adults and two kids.

If your children are under five, though, they get in for free. You will still have to book them a ticket, though.

Premium Admission tickets cost a chunk more, and offer a seat closer to the action in the venue’s Gold Circle area — an idea if you’re there for the music rather than the summery vibes.

Battersea Park in Concert is basically here to bring us classical, world music and jazz performances at their most approachable and palatable for the general British public. Sure, we’re not getting deep cuts here, but it does sound like a fun family day out.

The shows on the Saturday and Sunday are done and dusted by 9:30pm, or 9pm, giving plenty of scope to still get a relatively early night. It's a 10pm finish on the Friday.

And we don’t half appreciate the looser rules here, compared to other London concert events. Heck, you can even bring glassware in, and your own chairs. But leave the gazebo at home, and any properly sharp knives. Dogs are also not permitted, outside of “registered assistance dogs.”

Battersea Park in Concert takes over what we’re going to call the “bottom left” of Battersea Park, nearby the Albert Gate entrance.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Last year we heard a Blue Note Jazz club was opening in London, and it’s finally… almost here.

The Blue Note London opens in Covent Garden this September. And, wow, it is not messing about with its first set of acts.

Blue Note London’s grand opening gigs will see Robert Glasper play two sets, at 7:30pm and 9pm, on both 23rd and 24th September. Presale tickets are available from 10am on 13th August, while general sale begins 24 hours later.

A multi-Grammy winning, world-famous jazz pianist, we have no doubt the 250-capacity venue’s tickets will be gone in no time.

But there are arguably some even bigger names ahead. Our first-week top pick is Yussef Dayes, who again will play 7pm and 9:30pm sets, on 27th September.

He is followed by two nights from Jamie Cullum, who plays two sets a night on 28th and 29th September. Cullum will also return in October, on the 8th and 9th, for another set of concerts, should you miss him the first time around.

Space for new names

The calendar is already filling up for the rest of the year, with upcoming shows from Brand New Heavies, a whole string of Robert Glasper performances, and six sets from Cory Henry.

We don’t yet have any ticket price information for these shows, but given the stature of some of the names and the limited space available, we can’t imagine they’ll be that cheap.

Blue Note London will have two performance spaces. There’s the main room, which has capacity for 250, plus a second area with room for just 100, although that part won’t be open until later in the year.

The plan is for it to host performances for emerging artists and, from our digging around, there don’t appear to be listings online for this second space just yet.

Blue Note London’s entire first wave of tickets — not just the Robert Glasper opening night ones — go on sale next week, so take a look at the schedule before you miss a presale window.

This will be Blue Note’s first London venue, but it has been around since the early 1980s, starting out in New York’s Greenwich Village.

“Our hope is that Blue Note London becomes more than a venue – it becomes a home for musicians, a gathering place for the community and an integral part of London’s cultural landscape,” says Tsion Bensusan, co-owner of Blue Note’s parent company.

“London has always been one of the world’s great music capitals, with an extraordinary jazz heritage and an incredibly diverse creative community.”

Blue Note London is found at 42-29 St Martin’s Lane, nearby Charing Cross Station. While you can book tickets separately, a “founding member” membership costs £295 a year, granting six tickets a year and access to the earliest presale windows.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Miss out on Oasis’s giant ‘Live 25’ comeback tour? Don’t fret — you might be about to get another chance to see the band at a venue very close to the Gallagher’s hearts.

SJM, the promoter behind last year’s massive Oasis reunion, has just secured the licence to put on events at Knebworth, the iconic site of Oasis’s legendary 1996 shows.

It’s a licence that’s immediately in effect, according to BBC News, with SJM holding the licence ‘indefinitely’. The licence caters for shows open to 3am, too, making for a potential late-night festival set up.

The 125,000 capacity venue in Hertfordshire, England, played host to two record-breaking nights for the band across Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th August, 1996, with as many as 2.6 million fans at the time scrambling to nab one of the 250,000 tickets. That was the equivalent of 5% of the entire UK population.

With the 30th anniversary of those gigs looming, a return to Knebworth for Oasis feels as close to a sure thing as you can get in the crystal ball of gigging.

What's the story?

Certainly, there’s been plenty of speculation that the band would be performing again, even if the ‘Live 25’ tour had been initially billed as a one-off swansong.

Further European dates have been teased (Liam told a fan a 2027 show in Rome was ‘without a doubt’), while rumours of a 12-night Manchester residency at the Etihad stadium have circulated. Indeed, the annual Parklife festival in Manchester has shifted its 2027 dates from June to July, which some have suggested is to avoid a clash with any big Oasis show.

But if you’re looking for certainty, you’ve got the Steven Knight documentary Don’t Look Back In Anger to look forward to — hitting cinemas and IMAX screens on September 11th, it documents last year’s will-they-won’t-they reunion.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Five days, three stages, one motorway bridge – the 2026 edition of Junction 2 saw generations and genres collide beneath the M4 flyover in west London. Across two weekends, elite DJs and fired-up ravers came together to experience some of the best techno and house sets of the year.

This year’s Junction 2 was especially packed with talent as the organisers – led by Drumcode label boss and day two headliner Adam Beyer – celebrated the event’s 10th anniversary. Though technically downsized from last year’s five-stage outing, the main Bridge stage, secluded Woods stage, and minimalist Beatport Live ‘The Block’ stage had more than enough on offer for a crowd that tilted a little older, and perhaps a little more discerning, than your usual club night.

Each of the five days had a slightly different tilt to its lineup in an attempt to capture the full spectrum of techno and house, spanning heady minimal beats, American-influenced EDM, and drop-focused hard techno, often called TikTok techno in reference to its relentless pace.

I’m typically a fan of the groove-driven, slightly atonal techno influenced by Detroit and Berlin that dominates sound systems at London parties like Unfold and Midweek Session. With that said, I was surprised at how much I connected with some of the other sets at Junction 2, from atmospheric afrohouse to tripped-out trance.

I attended Junction 2 on three of its five days – 25th July, 26th July, and 2nd August. With that in mind, keep reading for my picks for the seven best acts from Junction 2 2026.

7. Tripolism – The Woods stage – 26th July

It takes a lot to get me dancing to afrohouse. Far from its diverse rhythmic roots, the genre is currently best known for an overprocessed and smoothed out timbre, the soundtrack to airbrushed flyers and package holidays to Dubai.

With that said, Danish trio Tripolism had me putting my pretentiousness aside and actually enjoying myself, spinning warm, melodic afrohouse that shone a new light on a genre I had thought lost to the highlight reels of aspiring influencers. A great fit for the cool and connected vibes of The Woods stage.

6. Miss Monique – The Bridge stage – 26th July

Miss Monique’s set on the main Bridge stage was pure cinema; the Ukrainian DJ’s clear expertise on the decks kept her theatrical flair and striking techno selections in perfect balance.

While her set was built around drops and the moments leading to them, Miss Monique’s performance was galvanised by sheer commitment to the bit – hands in the air, visuals flashing, shimmering echo effects and pure celebration at the moment of release, proving that commercial doesn’t have to mean compromised.

5. Leo Pol – The Woods stage – 2nd August

I know Leo Pol from his deep house records and chilled social media jam sessions, so rocking up to the Woods Stage to find the French DJ and producer rolling through a high-tempo trance and techno set was the best kind of shock.

Pol kept things fun and flowy across his two-hour slot, shelling out bouncy techno beats, rolling psytrance basslines, and the odd UKG breakdown to keep us on our toes. Most importantly, the tasteful silliness of his set cut right through the melodrama of the day’s harder sets, offering a much-needed alternative to the TikTok techno takeover on the festival’s final day.

4. Kikelomo – Beatport Live ‘The Block’ stage – 26th July

Festivals are a great place to find new artists to follow, and at J2 this was UK-born DJ Kikelomo, who brought a stylish approach to modern tech house to Beatport Live’s undeniably cool shipping container-turned-DJ booth (which had the best sound system of any stage at J2, thanks to its Funktion 1 rig).

Like Leo Pol (see above), Kikelomo’s smartest move was to keep the pressure low and energy high – while the day’s headliners chased ever-higher euphoric peaks, Kikelomo dialled in on groove, sleek basslines, and just enough of a percussive edge to keep the crowd locked. I’ll be looking for her name on flyers going forward.

3. Jeff Mills – The Bridge stage – 25th July

What is there left to say about Jeff Mills? The 63-year-old Detroit techno veteran once known as The Wizard for his supernatural abilities on the decks stepped up to fill in for an absent Nina Kraviz on Friday, closing out the first day of Junction 2 2026 with his signature blend of hypnotic loops, slamming kicks, and fragmented percussion.

Armed with four decks, a mixer, and a Roland TR-909 drum machine, Mills unleashed a trademark fast-and-loose techno set across 90 glorious minutes. As a small-time DJ and long-time lover of techno, I was ecstatic to see one of the architects of the genre work in real time, and when he wasn’t arguing with the sound technicians over volume, Mills’ performance was truly powerful.

Unlike the DJs before him on 25th July or those in subsequent days, Mills paid more attention to the tracks themselves than precise beatmatching or laser-accurate phrasing. His rapid-fire mixing spoke to the ethos of the generation of clubbing that he helped to define; the music matters more than the man.

2. Peach b2b Gabriela Kwarteng – The Woods stage – 25th July

I really love discussing and analysing dance music – but every now and then, I need a reminder that this scene is fundamentally about having fun.

At Junction 2, that reminder came courtesy of Canadian selector Peach and New York-born DJ Gabrielle Kwarteng, who came together in my favorite back-to-back set of the festival. The pair played a stylish set of tech-ish, classic-ish, hard-ish house music, deftly walking the line between bouncing beats and breathing room.

Both artists put their intuition and talent on display in blending tunes that felt both playful and a little off-kilter. Peach and Gabrielle Kwarteng have played together before at Fabric and KOKO, and their chemistry really came through – Junction 2 was full of great music and talent, but I don’t think anyone had more fun behind the decks than these two.

1. Ben Klock – The Bridge stage – 25th July

In the pantheon of modern techno, few names carry as much cache as Ben Klock. The long-time DJ, founder of the heavyweight Klockworks label, and Berghain resident is known as a must-see for any fan of techno, or dance music in general.

As the sun fell onto the crowd under the M4 flyover in the afternoon of day one, Ben Klock clocked in. If this year’s Junction 2 was defined by a tension between classic, commercial, and hyper-modern techno, then Ben Klock’s set was the moment that pulled everything together. An underlying pulse of hypnotic low-end movement pushed the stage’s massive sound system to its limits, while spiralling threads of alien sound design and off-beat hi-hats ensnared wandering minds in a double helix of listening and movement.

Each seamlessly blended track felt hand-picked to capitalise on our rising emotion and energy. As such, the crowd for Ben Klock was the most locked-in of any set I attended, and a few minutes into his performance I traded my spot backstage for a chance to get amongst it in the pit. The best dance of the festival, by far.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Most London festivals take place in the summer. But if you’re looking for something to do later in the year, consider Pitchfork Festival London, which has just announced its second wave of acts.

We wrote about the first wave of acts — which was most of them, to be honest — back in June. But there are some notable names among this second selection.

The biggest are Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, who will play in support of The Avalanches on 6th November at the Roundhouse. Arushi Jain will have a DJ set slot that evening.

DIIV are also a headliner highlight of the Dalston Takeover day, on 7th November, while Sex Mask and Sarah Meth have also been added to that epic roll-call.

Here are the other just-announced acts for Pitchfork Festival London later this year:

• Rockie Rode, The Healing Power of Horses and Any Young Mechanic on 4th November at MOTH
• Touching Ice on 4th November at Village Underground
• Charlie Osborne and Ship Sket on 5th November at Cause
• Robert Lester Folsom, Star Moles and Sean Solomon on 5th November at ICA
• Thaiboy Digital on 7th November at Village Underground
• Nirosta Steel on 7th November at ICA

Pitchfork has teamed up with DICE for ticket sales, and are purchased per-gig, aside from the multi-venue Dalston Takeover on 7th November.

Tickets begin at £20.30, rising to £46.25 for the big-name The Avalanches plus Panda Bear show at the Roundhouse.

That top ticket is currently sold out, with an active wait list, but plenty of shows still have ticket availability including the Dalston Takeover and rising star Jacob Alon at Hackney Empire on 4th November.

The first Pitchfork London Festival was in 2021, and featured a fistful of notable acts including Anna Meredith, Black Midi, Iceage and Stereolab.

Pitchfork’s very first fully branded festival took place all the way back in 2006, in Chicago.

• Camden Rocks is bringing its epic all-day gigs back to Barfly

For generations of London gig-goers, Barfly was the venue that let you see the festival headliners of the future cut their teeth, where you'd stumble across your next favourite band for the price of a couple of pints, and where Camden's reputation as the capital's rock 'n' roll heart was forged.

Now one of its most-loved institutions is making a comeback.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Camden Rocks has announced that its famous all-day gigs are returning to the newly reopened Barfly, with a series of Saturday takeovers running from August through to October. Better still, the events are set to become a regular fixture at the iconic Chalk Farm Road venue, giving emerging bands another vital stage in a city where grassroots music spaces remain under constant pressure.

The first event lands on 8th August, packing more than ten artists into a day running from 12.30pm until 11pm. London's own Lyla Nova tops a bill alongside Isla Rico, Drew Thomas, Jagged Camels, Dave Melia, Focus, Lake Acacia, To The Dogs, BroccoliBoy and Beach Bønes.

Further all-dayers follow on 12th September, 3rd October and 24th October, with artists including Danny Wildheart & The UK Reprobates, The Priscillas, The Heat Inc, The Sideshows and hard rock outfit Torus all scheduled to appear.

Classic venue, all-new bands

There's connective tissue between the return of both the Barfly and Camden Rocks in such quick succession. Camden Rocks founder Chris McCormack launched the event series at the original Barfly back in 2009, and is now a co-owner of the venue following its relaunch earlier this summer.

That relaunch marked Barfly's return as one of London's most important live music venues, complete with upgraded sound and lighting, a new Wall of Fame, a vinyl listening bar and a restored vintage jukebox. Frank Turner christened the venue's comeback with a pair of headline sets on its (re)opening night.

Camden Rocks is also inviting unsigned acts to apply to play future events, with submissions open to rock, indie, punk, metal and alternative artists. If Barfly's history is anything to go by, today's opening act could easily become tomorrow's arena headliner.

The full upcoming Camden Rocks line-up is as follows:

Saturday 8th August 2026
Isla Rico
Drew Thomas
Jagged Camels
Lyla Nova
Dave Melia
Focus
Lake Acacia
To The Dogs
BroccoliBoy
Beach Bønes

Saturday 12th September 2026
Danny Wildheart & The UK Reprobates
The Priscillas
River Hounds
Midway Still
Barking Poets
Can't Stop Talking
Leoni Jane Kennedy
Harsh Language
Prick

Saturday 3rd October 2026 (from 12:30pm)
The Heat Inc
Kultura
The Sha Sha Shanimals
HollowKid
Down Charmed
Conor Hughes
Carpethead
Bullmaera

(from 8:30pm)
The Sideshows
Bite Me

Saturday 24th October 2026
Torus
Jake Jones
Bangover
Burnt Chapter
Help!
Lit Like Vegas
Paint Me Crimson
Her Fury
The Madcap
Cult(ure)

Tickets cost £10 in advance, and can be purchased here.

• “No one's got more than three good songs”: Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno talks online grifters, AI emptiness and new genre-hopping album Act III

Serge Pizzorno, Kasabian frontman, chose (wisely) not to watch the World Cup final half-time show.

I’m catching up with the singer/songwriter/festival-anthem-conductor the morning after the big game and its midway/mid-tier entertainment — a rather underwhelming schmaltzfest featuring Shakira, Madonna, Justin Bieber and Coldplay, among overpaid others.

“Football won in the end,” jokes Pizzorno, who is at his home in Leicester, working out how tracks from the band’s new, ninth, album, Act III, are going to work into Kasabian’s upcoming live shows.

“I almost approach it like a soundscape, like a soundtrack,” he tells Shortlist over a Zoom call in his home studio.

“In my mind, it runs as a score, basically. It's almost like a way of templating, how songs go in and out of each other. I really, really want this to feel like a real journey through the eras of Kasabian.”

Would Kasabian have done a better job at the half time show? Pizzorno is, afterall, renowned for his own not-too-shabby skills on the pitch.

“I think absolutely yes,” he laughs.

“I mean, honestly, we're made for it. We've got the tunes and the energy. But do you know what I did at half time? Because it's half an hour, I had a few pals over, so we did a 'Dad's v Lads' football game. It's a good time to get a decent game in. So I didn't watch it... but we'd play that for sure.

“But I'd say we only want 15 minutes. Get the lads back on the pitch! 30 minutes is a joke. 15 is enough — no one's got more than three good songs anyway.”

‘Three good songs’ does the Kasabian back-catalogue a major disservice though, and Pizzorno has become the perfect frontman to channel them through. Following the dismissal of former frontman Tom Meighan in 2020 (Meighan was convicted of domestic assault the same year), Pizzorno has taken on the talismanic mantle at the front of stage for Kasabian, steering the band for the last half decade through more than 150 shows.

Swapping the guitar for the mic has led to some of the most memorable gigs in the band’s history – and London has played host to some of the best, from a barn-storming outdoor show at Finsbury Park to an arena-shaking masterclass at the O2 in Greenwich.

“The Finsbury Park show was, I say this in all honesty, and not to take it too lightly, but it was probably one of the greatest shows we've ever played,” Serge beams.

“The atmosphere was just really truly special, and I've seen some of the footage back. I'm still on a massive high honestly — I can still go back to the stage and every now and again sort of get flashbacks of it. I've still not really come down from it. To see the next generation of Kasabian fans, and then the people that have been there since day one together, just vibing together. It was honestly absolutely amazing, it was an absolute pleasure.”

London crowds (unfairly) have a reputation for being standoffish and chin-scratchy, but that’s never been the case for Kasabian, who see the capital’s fans as among the most up-for-it in the world.

“Everyone’s always ‘Oh, you know, it's a London crowd, so expect it not to go off as much as it does anywhere else'. But we've never felt that — especially like when we played the O2. It was like a full on '90s rave. It was mental — the O2 does not go off like that, that gig was crazy, it was big,” says Serge.

“Our experience of London shows has always been just chaos, even from playing the Camden Monarch back in the day. There's a sort of dancier vibe, I would say. People have just got that little shoulder turning.”

That’s in no small part thanks to Pizzorno’s ever-growing stage presence. The band (completed by Tim Carter on guitars, Ian Matthews on drums, and Chris Edwards on bass) have become a formidable unit, despite the trials the last decade has thrown at them. Serge likens his performance to “a martial art.”

“I just gave my heart to it,” he says of having to step up to the mic.

“I had no real idea on how or why. Great rock and roll is just from the heart. So if you go on stage and you just go, 'I'm gonna give you everything I've got, every single part of me you're gonna have every night'. That's kind of where you start because that's all you've got, right? And then over time, like anything, you start to learn the craft. And then you learn how to stand in front of 50, 60,000 people and entertain.

“Now I feel like I legitimately kind of have a little bit of a clue what's going on!”

“I do genuinely see myself as just someone in the crowd listening,” he explains.

“Like, if I was in the crowd now, this is what I want to happen. And the crowd probably sees themselves in me on stage. Because that's the way I'm trying to harness them — that kind of takes it to a really big level.”

“A little bit of every Kasabian era”

Act III then represents a culmination of the graft as much as the craft. The past decade has been a proving ground for the band, and Pizzorno on more than one occasion has said the album is a “clean slate” for the band.

It leaves next to nothing on the table. Act III takes a pick-n-mix approach to sound and genre — there’s the rock and the riffs, obviously, but also hip-hop, soul, psychedelia and rave weaved across its tracks. A musical magpie, is there anything Serge doesn’t like to listen to?

“I have a sort of physical reaction to things that I really like,” he explains.

“If something touches me emotionally, there's goosebumps, I can feel overwhelmed, joy. Music can really move me. It could be a weird old folk song, and I'd be sitting there going, 'Whatever this is, I am just in'. It could be a classical piece, or it could be drum and bass. I think why I've always made music the way I've made it is that I've just instinctively followed what I like.

“There are times where a lot of Kasabian records, they can jump, they jump! Sometimes it can be a bit jarring — some industrial techno followed by a really sweet acoustic ballad. But it's just the way in which I react to music.”

The record “feels like a little bit of every Kasabian era” says Serge. “There's a little nod to all the little places that we visited in the past.” But it also dips its toes into social commentary more explicitly than in previous work.

‘One nation under one retail park / There’s nothing here for you’ Serge sings on Soulmate. “The line… I just thought it would look great on a t-shirt!” he jokes — but there’s a deeper longing for a lost sense of community he sees across the UK today, dominated by mega-corp brands and uncaring local governance.

“I live in Leicester, and the centre was just such a vibrant, beautiful, interesting place to be 20 years ago, because there were independent stores. I do wish that landlords and councils would make rent for premises doable, so we can have places to go and interesting stores.”

“Maybe this just sounds like such an old fashioned idea,” he muses. “But I do think community is based around people just hanging out and sharing ideas. In Leicester now, we've kind of lost the city centre, and I wish we hadn't. It's not gone forever — if there were art centres and places for people to show work, music venues for people to just go and play… I just feel like that's the start of something in your own community that you could start.”

The album also takes a shot at online bad actors and ill-intentioned influencers on the track The Guru and the Crypto Time Machine, a wave of characters Serge likens to 60s cult leaders and snake-oil salesmen.

“I was just noticing a sort of new wave guru — masked behind trying to help you out, getting you fit, improving your wellness and mindfulness and... then charging £10 a month at the end of it,” he says.

“In terms of social media, I just fight against the attention that it dominates, and I just worry about the creativity that's lost on time spent scrolling. You look at your own screen time and it's ridiculous. I could have learnt five languages! I could have made eight more albums! I'm not saying everyone should switch off their phones, it's just all that energy being lost into essentially stuff that's just trying to sell you something.

“I've got kids, and without sounding like a fucking nagging old twat, I want them to know your attention is yours.”

And AI? If the entirety of the Australian music-loving public can be taken with an algorithmically generated cover of Madonna’s Like A Prayer, we’re all doomed, right? Serge remains pragmatic.

“If you're interested in the commerce, if you're an artist that thinks about units and algorithms and shifting money around, then something like AI is brilliant for you because you can have it do a million things, you can have it copy whatever you want, and you can just keep pumping the system with more and more music. Same in fashion, film, everywhere,” he argues.

“But I'm not a songwriter because of that, you have no control over any of that. I write music because I fucking have to, and it makes me feel incredible, and it makes me feel excited every morning I wake up. I think, 'Today's the day I might fucking write that song that changes the world,' or 'I might write that melody that that is as good as Strawberry Fields'. I don't want that taken away from me because I could just go online and say 'Write me a melody like X, Y, Z'. Then I've done nothing. I make music because I love making music.”

Shaking off the shackles

Act III is eclectic and thoughtful then — and a million miles from the ‘lad rock’ labelling that has unfairly hung around Kasabian’s neck for much of the later part of the band's existence. For Serge, that label has been both frustrating and a tool with which to defy expectations.

“I do find it hilarious,” he laughs. “But I also think it instantly reveals the listener that hasn't even listened to it. After all these years, they kind of sound like they don't really know what they’re talking about if they say that.

“So I was patient and I just bided my time, I just kept my mouth shut and watched it play out. I knew where I was going, I knew what I wanted to make. We were taking things from Kraftwerk, the Silver Apples, David Lynch, Jodorowsky.

“Sometimes it's nice to play with it. We could use it — certainly when you first start out. It's a fight to get out of Leicester. It's a fight to be noticed — to be in a band, you know, wasn't a cool thing.

“When you first do your interviews, you're still in that mode — you don't really know how to communicate with journalists, you feel like they're from another world, and then you retreat back into your fighting mode. So I can understand the miscommunication at the beginning. We sat with journalists and they'd try and catch you out, you'd feel it coming, but then rather than sort of try and talk your way out of it you'd just double down on being a bit of a shitbag! Which is kind of punk, like, 'You know what? Yeah, we are fucking lads. Fuck you.' You retreat into that mentality.”

With ACT III in the bag, “all bets are off” for Kasabian’s next move, says Serge. But there’s a couple of things on the frontman’s to-do list that hint as to where his creative energies are pointing.

“I would love to make a pure orchestral record,” he reveals. “I don't know whether that would be a Kasabian thing, but I would love to follow that side of what I like to listen to and make something heartbreaking. Something that would fill the Verona amphitheatre — candles, just pure emotional music. I would love to do that. Writing the third record, I listened to [Love's] Forever Changes a lot. I really enjoyed that album.”

And the silver screen calls, too — but in front of the orchestra, rather than the camera.

“I scored a film over 10 years ago now. So I'd really like to do that again. I would really love to do a score for a Shane Meadows, that would be the dream, or a Steve McQueen film.

“But in terms of Kasabian, all bets are off. It's good times, man. Good times.”

Kasabian headline Leeds Festival on August 27th, and London’s O2 Arena on December 18th as part of a nationwide UK tour. New album ‘Act III’ is out on September 4th, and new single ‘SUPERPOWERS’ is out now.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Abbey Road is pretty much synonymous with musical greatness, and is one of those iconic yet mystical London gems with just as much history enclosed within it as the local museums. Now, a retrospective of sorts is heading our way, with a new exhibition which will unmask some of the details and quiet moments behind some of the biggest albums ever created.

Called Abbey Road: Reframed, the exhibition will be presented in three parts: The Art of Recording, Iconic Image Makers, and the Abbey Road Music Photography Accelerator. The whole exhibition is only in London fleetingly, running from 11th-22nd August at the capital’s Iconic Images Gallery. And much like the spirit of the 60s music heyday, the art is free to see.

The Art of Recording explores the technology of sound through the lens of the legendary Nile Rodgers’ arrangement of Let’s Dance, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, and The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It celebrates the craftsmanship and technology behind some of the world’s most influential recordings, with a rare opportunity to see photographs of items from the Abbey Road collection which have never been exhibited.

Iconic Image Makers is all about recognising the photographers whose work has shaped the visual history of music. It will feature a collection of celebrated images taken at Abbey Road Studios across the years, including the works of celebrated photographers Jill Furmanovsky, Norman Parkinson and Terry O’ Neill.

The Abbey Road Music Photography Accelerator brings together images from finalists and award winners from the Music Photography Awards over the last four years. Featured photographers include Alex Castillo, Alex Amoros, Ines Ziouane, Jen Amelia, Paul Bogle, Phoebe Fox, Tom Pallant and Pooneh Ghana.

You can find Abbey Road: Reframed at Iconic Images Gallery, 16 Waterloo Place, SW1Y 4AR.

• Londoners can get a free Aperol Spritz this weekend but they need to bring a secret item with them

Charli xcx's new album Music, Fashion, Film dropped just days ago on 24th July and, as if to celebrate the occasion, the singer has got herself a permanent place in London.

Sort of.

A portrait of Charli xcx has joined the National Portrait Gallery’s collection, sitting in room 33, for those keen to visit in person.

It’s a print of a photo by UK photographer Harley Weir, taken in 2024 as part of the promotional cycle surrounding the singer’s Brat album.

It depicts Charli xcx wth voluminous hair and dark eye shadow, looking slightly away from the camera’s gaze.

The photo becomes part of the National Portrait Gallery’s History Makers area, and was acquired through a Collecting the Now fund. Its aim is to bring newer and more diverse artists into the gallery’s fold — not necessarily with pictures of white-hot pop stars.

Charli xcx sits alongside figures like Naomi Ackie, Raye and Princess Catherine in this part of the gallery, as well as a portrait of Adolescence star Owen Cooper.

It’s found on the ground floor of the National Portrait Gallery.

Picture this

Charli xcx's Music, Fashion, Film could potentially become her second chart-topping album of the year, having reached similar heights with her Wuthering Heights soundtrack in February. We’ll find out on Friday late-afternoon when the UK Albums Chart releases its weekly stats.

The album has received mostly highly positive reviews from the critics, despite being a studio album follow-up to one of the most well-regarded pop albums of the decade, 2024’s Brat.

She only has one set of UK live shows on the books at present, though, the Reading and Leeds festivals in late August.

Her Music, Fashion, Film tour kicks off in September, but so far only the US leg has been announced. We will bring you news of UK dates as it arrives.

The National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection is free to visit, as is the current Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2026 exhibition. You only have to pay to get into Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait, which is on until 6th September. Tickets cost £25, or £27 for Friday to Sunday slots.

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

Sometimes breaking into the arts scene in general feels insurmountable without a famous parents or a TikTok following, but luckily Sam Smith is trying to change that. As part of their bid to champion emerging artists the singer-songwriter has opened up the chance for 10 burgeoning musicians to open for their upcoming residency shows in London and Manchester.

The scheme was announced earlier this week on Radio 1’s New Music Show, confirming that Sam Smith in partnership with BBC Introducing is setting up 10 slots to up and coming local artists to open for them on their UK residency shows, including several in London in September. The performance also comes with the chance to be featured on Radio 1 as part of the ongoing BBC Introducing slot.

So, if you’re wondering how you actually enter, it’s pretty simple. Budding artists need to head to the BBC Introducing Uploader, and upload a clip of their music, using the tag labelled ‘Sam Smith’ so they know which opportunity you’re trying to enter. Applications open on Wednesday 29th and will stay open for a week, closing the following Wednesday (5th August). There are no upward age restrictions on entering, although you have to be at least 16 in order to create a profile for BBC Introducing.

If Sam and the BBC Introducing panel like what they hear, the artists will make a shortlist before Sam chooses the final ten artists who will open for their shows.

The London residencies are taking place from 8th until the 19th of September, and form part of Sam Smith’s live shows for their new album Hazel Eyes which releases in August. All eight of the London shows will be taking place at the historic London Coliseum, whilst the two Manchester dates will take place at the Manchester Albert Hall.

Speaking about the initiative, Sam Smith said it was "exciting” to be a part of it and “the discovery process for artists and audiences is so important and being able to play a part in that is fantastic.”

Lorna Clarke, Director of BBC Music, said that the partnership "reflects the full breadth of BBC Music’s work" and "championing new talent and showcasing established artists is at the heart of what [they] do."

You can check out how to enter here and find out details about the residency shows here.

• A brand new live music venue is heading to North London

Sing and Son of Rambow director Garth Jennings is making a documentary about iconic band Pulp, and it will be out in cinemas later this year for one day only.

Pulp: What Do You Do For an Encore? is a doc about Pulp through the ages, their long trudge through relative obscurity, their breakthrough in the 90s and their biggest arena show to date at The O2 Arena in 2025.

You can have a sample of what’s coming in it with this just-released trailer:

Pulp: What Do You Do For an Encore? is not going to be difficult to see. It’s coming to MUBI later this year, although we don’t have a firm date just yet.

We do have one other release date: 18th September. This is when, for one day only, Pulp: What Do You Do For an Encore? will be shown in UK cinemas. Which cinemas? That bit is still TBC.

Those in the US can see it on 24th September, and the Canadian contingent the day before on 23rd September.

The roughly 90-minute documentary features voiceover work from Jarvis Cocker himself, and loads of archive footage from back in the day.

As you’re probably picking up by now, this is anything but an unofficial biography piece. Jennings also has plenty of history with the band, as well as being something of a British icon in his own right.

Jennings directed some Pulp music videos back in the 1990s, including Help the Aged and A Little Soul. It’s where he cut his teeth as a film-maker before shifting to films 20 years ago with the likes of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

He’s also worked with other big UK names in music like Blur, Fatboy Slim and Radiohead. A full-on music doc is still somewhat out of the ordinary for the director, mind.

Cocker says the film is “a vibrant tribute to a band of brilliant misfits, whose unique blend of irony, rebellion, and razor-sharp social commentary resonated with generations of listeners.”

News of Pulp: What Do You Do For an Encore? was first outed in June, this latest announcement bringing us the trailer and cinema release details.

Set to land on streaming some time in the Autumn, the doc follows a new live album, called Live!, which is out on 28th August.

If you fancy catching Pulp actually live, and not on CD, streaming or vinyl, their next UK dates are at Wythenshawe Park on 28th August — album release day — and as headliners at the End of the Road festival on 5th September.

• The best music documentaries (and where to watch them)

Lily Allen isn’t exactly known for subtlety, as anyone who caught her tour ‘fits will have seen, and her latest album West End Girl was just as much a tell-all as a banging soundtrack to your 2025/6. Now, a new feature length documentary about Lily Allen’s life and career is heading to Prime Video soon.

The film will be a bit of a retrospective that follows the singer’s journey from the early start, becoming dubbed the Queen of MySpace, her subsequent rise to fame, all the way up to her career today.

The documentary is being directed by Mat Whitecross who’s mainly known for The Road to Guantanamo. It will feature interviews with people close to the 41-year old singer and is set to land on our screens in 2027.

She signed with Regal Recordings in 2005 and created an account on MySpace where she posted her demos which attracted thousands of views. She released her debut album, Alright, in 2006 which contained one of her breakout hits Smile, which went onto become a number one. She has more than a few huge hits like Smile, such as Alfie and Not Fair, before she took a break from music turning to acting instead.

Presumably, this stint in London’s West End was the inspiration behind the title for Allen’s latest album when she returned to music last year. Her now infamous album West End Girl told the story of the dissolution of her relationship with Stranger Things actor David Harbour. The pair had originally got married in September after a year of dating. The album detailed the breakdown of their relationship and his alleged infidelity, and was one of the cultural break outs of the year.

Allen is currently touring the album, performing across London and later Europe.

It’s not known if Harbour will feature in the documentary, although previously all he has said on the topic was that the album’s contents “wasn’t my experience” in an interview with Variety.

Hopefully, we'll have more details, including an exact release date soon.

• Bob Dylan goes classy with five night London Royal Festival Hall residency

We’re almost getting whiplash between the number of exciting new openings gracing London's streets and the amount of iconic institutions having to shut their doors. All in all, it’s nice to know the UK music and arts scene is not entirely effed, and the new arrival of a community-built arts venue is further proof that it’s not all doom n' gloom, but rhythm n' blues.

Based in Tottenham, Radial is a new grassroots venue, inspired by and built for its local community. It’s all about championing arts, music, and culture through a varied and inclusive roster of live events, creativity, and collaboration. The space is set to open up on 5th September, with a decent 250-capacity.

The team behind the new site is ten87, a creative studio hub with 50 recording studios across the capital. Funded by the public, it works with the music industry to help new creators within the community. Radial marks their first move into live performance, taking their groovy, tuned music-making into a cultural event for all. Over the past decade, the studios have supported artists from Fontaines D.C to Wolf Alice and many more, who you’ll have snapped up tickets to recently.

Unlike a lot of spaces you can currently boogie the night away in across the capital, Radial is “a space developed around sound”, putting quality music at its core. In terms of what that’s going to look like, their programme is set to be rooted in active listening, expect intimate performances, eclectic club nights, as well as artist-led experiments like workshops and sound-based wellness. According to the team, the radial concept shapes every aspect of the physical experience - from how people arrive and gather, to how they move through, watch performances and connect with one another. It’s all sounding very art school tbh, but in the best possible way.

On the inside, it has capacity for 250-300 standing, or up to 80 seated, with the main space decked out in flexible Japanese-style loungers so they can keep switching up the look as needed. The main space is centred around a main performance room featuring a 10-point custom-built system with precisely designed acoustics, which has been headed up by renowned acoustician Nick Whitaker, whose work includes the legendary nightclub Plastic People.

Romy, who's also a recording artist, said: "Smaller venues are essential to London's musical ecosystem. Sadly, we’ve watched so many closures over recent years. We just want to give people a new space for culture and connection. Which feels important now, more than ever."

Although radial is set to open up on 5th September, they're running four one-off club nights across July and August. The nights boast sets from DJs and artists including: Jacklyn, Adult Woman, Meg Ward, Sub Basics, nohexcode, and plenty more.

You can find Radial at 39b Markfield Rd, N15 4QA.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Some bands are lucky if they survive their first 40 minutes on stage together, but alt-rock pioneers Pixies this year celebrate 40 years as a band — a fact they themselves seem a little taken aback by.

Speaking to Shortlist ahead of a blistering, career-spanning set at Madrid’s Mad Cool festival, did they ever envision Pixies as a life-long gig?

“God, that’s a yes and no!” guitarist Joey Santiago tells us.

“We were definitely young and had a vision,” adds drummer David Lovering, who joined Santiago, original bassist Kim Deal and lead Pixies songwriter Charles ‘Frank Black / Black Francis’ Thompson in the group’s founding four.

“Also being young itself is just very fun. When I look back on those days I look back very fondly. It was a lot of fun doing the early shows, even setting up, getting in the van. There was just a natural progression to where we went.

“But we were always looking up — ‘let’s achieve, let’s do this, let’s be great.’”

Arguably the most influential American rock band of (semi-)modern times, Pixies, with their unassuming sense of style, sci-fi tinged-Old-testament-referencing songs, and wry sense of humour would have been ‘The Band Least Likely To’ in their High School year books. But their ferocious string of late 80s-into-early-90s albums set up the “LOUD-quiet-LOUD” dynamic that would not only become Pixies’ calling card, but set the stage for grunge and any guitar-forward acts that would follow.

Wave of Adulation

Indeed, one of grunge’s most successful survivors, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters and Nirvana, called the Pixies’ debut album Surfer Rosa his “perfect” record.

“It’s great. I agree, it’s my favourite album!” jokes Santiago, though hearing such high praise from one of the biggest rockstars in the world makes little difference to him.

“Between [someone like Grohl] saying it or the fans saying it, I’d say it’s about equal. It’s nice that people acknowledge it.”

For a band firmly seated in legendary status, Pixies are not accustomed to looking back.

“The last time I listened to Surfer Rosa was… gosh… When it first came out I listened to it constantly, I was so proud of it,” says Santiago, “So I probably did all my listening back then.”

Even with 40th anniversary re-issues on the way teasing unreleased new music (“Are we doing that?”, says a seemingly-genuinely surprised Santiago), the focus for the band remains new music. Since reforming in 2004 (now sporting bassist Emma Richardson in the role first played by Deal, and later Paz Lenchantin), the Pixies have released five studio albums — 2024’s The Night The Zombies Came being the latest. That’s as many now as they had before their initial 1993 break-up.

Their work ethic remains undimmed, a side-effect perhaps of being forged in an era where the expectation was a new album every year or so. When this current anniversary tour ends, a short break will act only as a breather before heading back into the studio again, tipping the scales of balance towards the second coming of the Pixies when it comes to the number of albums released, per era.

“Definitely, speaking for myself, I’ve learned over the years to walk away happy,” says Lovering of his experience in the studio with the latest incarnation of the Pixies.

“When it’s pre-production, when I’ve learnt the material, rehearsed it enough, I know it’ll be a good effort that I’ve made. I think with the last record [The Night The Zombies Came], I think we were all very connected in terms of what we did. We play a lot from it live.”

Here Comes Your Nan

“We’ve improved with age I think,” adds Lovering when discussing the rarities joining the new re-issues of classic albums Bossanova and Trompe Le Monde.

“When I look back at them, I’m just like, ‘God, I sucked back then!’”

But for a large chunk of the Pixies fanbase, there’s never been a ‘back then’ — since reforming, the Pixies have been consistently finding a younger and younger fanbase. And whether that’s at the end of David Fincher’s Fight Club or the final season of Stranger Things, there’s one song in particular that acts as a gateway drug to the Pixies: Where Is My Mind? Whether on Tik Tok or Netflix, the avenues to finding the Pixies music are more varied than ever before.

“We’re very fortunate to have this ongoing youth attachment — it first started in 2004 when we reunited, and it was just a sea of kids,” recalls Lovering.

“That has been the same now twenty-something years later. Even those kids have grown up, but it’s always been replenished. It’s a lot of social media helping. I’m sure they know all the new material — but it’s people my age at the back saying play the other stuff! But social media, and movies — discovery is very weighted there now.”

With studio time booked and a tour that’s taking the Boston band from their “second home” in London, playing the Royal Albert Hall, to the Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival in South Korea, the Pixies seem ready to rock for another 40 years. What do the Pixies want people to be saying about them come the 100th anniversary of the band?

“I hope people are saying, ‘I wish I was alive when they were alive, I’d have loved to see them, and now we’re stuck with watching them in a hologram show,’” says Santiago.

“We’d never do a hologram show, but I do want to see the ABBA one.”

40 years later, or 50 years later, or 200 years later, we’ve got a sneaking suspicion Pixies fans will still want to see the band in whatever future form they can.

Bossanova and Trompe le Monde are re-released on vinyl and CD on September 11th.

• Mad Cool festival 2026 review: Wolf Alice, Pixies, David Byrne, Pulp and more deliver scorching sets under Madrid sun

As an “elder emo”, My Chemical Romance riding into London to perform The Black Parade in full is a big deal. For many of us, it wasn't just another album. It was the soundtrack to awkward sixth-form lunch breaks, logging off and back on to MSN Messenger to alert our crushes, and bedrooms plastered with Kerrang! posters. Twenty years on, it still hits just as hard.

What's changed is us.

Walking through Wembley before the show, there are still teenagers in smudged eyeliner, military jackets and painful looking New Rocks who have just discovered the record for the first time. But they're outnumbered by people who look a lot more like me: thirty-somethings with mortgages, careers and children, who still instinctively veer towards the black T-shirt rail in every clothes shop.

At 16 (the age I was when the record was released), growing up 342 miles from London, I'd never have imagined I'd one day be living in the Capital, working in the creative industry and calling this city home. Back then, London existed in my imagination through The Libertines’ lyrics and grainy photos of Camden that circulated on MySpace. It felt like the spiritual home of alternative culture: a place where people who looked like me actually belonged.

So, as tens of thousands of fans gathered to celebrate one of emo's defining records, I wanted to know what became of the people who grew up with it. What do they do now? Where do London's alternative crowd hang out? And perhaps the biggest question of all: was it ever really just a phase?

Emos never say die

"I still feel like that 13-year-old emo kid," laughs Saskia, now a dental nurse in her thirties. "I'm just a lot happier."

She first saw My Chemical Romance in 2007, and returning for The Black Parade nearly two decades later felt surreal—especially as her boyfriend proposed to her during Famous Last Words.

"People say bands save lives, but MCR genuinely did that for me. They've brought me so much light through some really dark times. Seeing this album again as a grown woman is something my teenage self could only dream about."

For Ellie, now training to become a teacher at 22, adulthood hasn't erased that identity either.

"The black hair and heavy eyeliner have gone," she says, "but I still have My Chemical Romance tattoos and band posters all over my house.

Discovering The Black Parade at 12 made her feel less alone. “Hearing 90,000 people scream those same lyrics back years later? It was almost therapeutic."

Emo Didn't End…It Became Family Tradition

For some fans, the music didn't stop with them. It was handed down

Danielle, a renowned early years educator with nearly 1 million TikTok followers, explains that music was already the centre of family life growing up, and now she's passing it on to her own children.

"When I was 19, four months pregnant and preparing to become a single mum, The Black Parade became my lifeline. Famous Last Words got me through that period."

At Wembley, she stood between her mum and her three daughters.

"We all cried. Watching three generations singing every lyric together made me realise we were part of something much bigger than a concert."

Walking around the stadium, stories like Danielle's were everywhere. Parents introducing teenagers to the albums that once got them through adolescence was wonderful to witness. One day I hope to pass down my sweaty, faded band tees and scratched records to my daughters, but I fear 3 and 5 year olds probably aren’t ready to sing along to “You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison”.

I doubt Pitbull, who played on the same evening of MCR in Hyde Park, will have the same resonance. But only time will tell.

Some Of Us Never Left The Scene

For others, emo didn't just shape who they were—it shaped what they do.

"I basically get paid to be that same emo kid," says freelance music journalist Ali, now in his thirties, who has interviewed the likes of Paramore and Twenty One Pilots.

"The sense of community I found through alternative music became everything. It's what I still celebrate through my writing today."

He credits seeing the band touring The Black Parade on its original run in 2007 with sparking an obsession with live music that eventually became his career.

Photographer and social media manager Nicola Hayes tells a similar story.

"Finding the alternative scene was like finding my people," she says.

Today she photographs bands including Architects, Castle Rat and Suicidal Tendencies.

"The alt kid in me never left. The scene has always been at the forefront of my life and creativity."

London's Alternative Scene Isn’t Dead

While emo-con 2026 was in full swing at Wembley, I began to ponder one crucial question: where does London's alternative crowd hang out when bands of this stature aren’t in town? It used to be under a half pipe with two litres of White Lightning for me, but the city seems to be lacking in skate parks that cater for underage drinking.

Ali recommends The Black Heart in Camden, but also points towards Southbank's skate scene, where the same DIY spirit still thrives.

Nicola's London starts at The Great Frog for handmade silver jewellery (which boasts collabs with the likes of Ghost, Iron Maiden and Motorhead) before heading to gigs at The Underworld, MOTH Club, The Lexington and Shacklewell Arms. Afterwards? Blondies Tap Room in East London, a sublime heavy metal bar with a brewing operation in the back.

Taken together, their recommendations reveal something bigger than a list of pubs and venues. Alternative London hasn't disappeared: it has decentralised. The scene that once revolved around Camden now stretches from Hackney taprooms to Soho jewellers and grassroots venues across the city. If anything, it’s expanding its reach.

It Was Never A Phase

As the opening notes of Welcome to the Black Parade echoed around Wembley, 90,000 voices sang every word without hesitation or fear.

Some had discovered the album on TikTok. Others remembered buying it on CD in Woolworths. But here, those generations collided. No gatekeeping, just unity.

The Black Parade gave a legion of outsiders somewhere to belong. Walking away from the stadium after witnessing Gerard Way get stabbed in the chest by a clown wearing a bomb vest to a chorus of screams, it became clear that belonging didn't disappear when the makeup washed off or adulthood arrived.

Emo was never really about the sweeping fringe, the tight jeans or the melancholic social media statuses that called for check-ins of “U OK BBZ? DM ME.” It was about finding your people. Twenty years later, those people have simply grown up together.

And they’re going to be OK. Trust me.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

It’s been called the guitar world’s worst-kept secret, and for good reason.

When Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong hit those first chords of Holiday at the 2026 Super Bowl pre-game show, eagle-eyed guitar fans spotted something unusual sitting behind him. Instead of the familiar black Marshall stack he usually tours with, there was a striking baby-blue amp head that sent gear heads into detective mode.

Now, the mystery has been solved.

Marshall has officially unveiled the Super Lead 1959BJA Billie Joe Armstrong Artist Signature, its first signature amplifier in 14 years, giving fans the chance to get closer than ever to the unmistakable guitar sound that powered Green Day's biggest hits. And we’ve had a chance to play on it.

Primed for power chords

Built in collaboration with Armstrong, the 100W valve head is based on Marshall's handwired 1959HW platform, but has been extensively reworked with a custom "Dookie Mod". Inspired by the tone developed alongside legendary producer Rob Cavallo during the recording of Green Day's breakthrough album Dookie, the amp offers higher gain, tighter low-end response and the saturated crunch that has become Armstrong's calling card across three decades of punk rock.

Handwired in the UK, the 1959BJA packs three ECC83 preamp valves, four EL34 power valves, a single-channel layout with master volume and three-band EQ, and dual speaker outputs with selectable impedance.

Firing it up at a Marshall showcase event in London yesterday, it doesn’t take much twiddling to get that signature Green Day sound. There’s more bite to the gain, and warmth and body to the tone, ready for some powerslamming power chords.

As something that rocked the Super Bowl however, it’s naturally not one best suited to a quick shred in a bedroom. That 100W output alongside the four EL34 tubes means this is a stadium-ready bit of kit. Whack out those opening chords to Welcome To Paradise in your flat and you might end up with the police knocking with an anti-social behaviour notice. Definitely one for the practice rooms, then.

The looks are every bit as distinctive as the sound. Wrapped in a baby-blue finish inspired by Armstrong's beloved first guitar, Blue, the amp features custom branding, brass and silver control panels, and the Green Day frontman's signature across both the front and rear. Marshall is selling it as a head-only unit, allowing players to pair it with the speaker cabinet of their choice.

‘Turn it the f*ck up!’

“I’m so overjoyed to have my own signature Marshall amp,” said Armstrong of his customised kit in a press release accompanying the reveal.

“These amps have been a part of my musical life, from my heroes down to little old me. Turn it the f**k up! …This amp is my ride or die. Play fast! Die trying.”

“Billie Joe’s guitar sound is instantly recognisable,” Steph Carter, culture marketing director at Marshall (and former Gallows guitarist) added.

“From the moment you hear those opening chords on Dookie, you know exactly who it is. Working with Billie to create an amp that captures that punch, aggression and clarity was an incredible project for our team.”

The Marshall 1959BJA Billie Joe Armstrong Artist Signature goes on sale from 21st July 2026 for £3,099.99, available through Marshall and authorised retailers.

Marshall also says purchases made through its Amplify loyalty programme will contribute 1% towards supporting grassroots music venues, adding a feel-good encore to one of the year's biggest gear launches.

• The top 50 best rock albums of all time, ranked

Usually you’d associate a street party with union jack bunting, a bank holiday, warm beige dips that no one is sure the provenance of, and kids riding a dangerous sugar rush. Legendary jazz club Ronnie Scotts is putting a classier spin on the old street party affair, opening up the streets of Soho this summer with a syncopated beat and a slew of good times.

On 1st August, Ronnie Scott’s Street Party is officially kicking off, bringing some of the most exciting and tuneful names in jazz, soul, R&B, and hip-hop to Soho’s auspicious streets. The iconic London joint will be setting up across two outdoor stages on Frith Street bringing a packed schedule of beat and tunes to the public. And like any good street party, it’s completely free to attend, just turn up – or make a wrong turn and vibe with it – and you’ll be able to sway, swing, and sing along.

The street party will span across five hours on 1st August, with a mix of different artists and entertainment filling up the day, kicking off at 11.30am and wrapping up around 5pm.

The concerts will feature DJ-sets, solo artists, plenty of al-fresco bars and grub up for grabs, as well as activities for grown-ups and kids alike. Artists set to perform at this year’s street party include Blue Lab Beats, Daniel Casimir Big Band, Shae Universe, Guvna B, Summer Pearl, Marlon the Pannist, and the Ronnie Scott’s Gospel Choir.

The whole shindig is being presented in partnership with the Music Venue Trust (MVT) and Save our Scene, supporting grassroots venues and underrepresented artists, giving them a platform and entry into performing and creating. Basically, you’re doing good by showing up, and all you have to do is party along.

Whether you plan to turn up, or you end up wandering through Soho and are drawn to the music, it’s one of those free events which reminds you why living in the big smoke can be so good – free, cultured, and the kind of summer scenes you’d see in a romcom montage, what more could you ask for?

Fred Nash, Managing Director at Ronnie Scott’s said: “Before the festivals, the awards and the headline tours, there are independent venues where musicians can experiment, find their voice and connect with audiences for the first time. Those spaces are absolutely essential to the health of British music. The Street Party is our way of opening Ronnie Scott’s up to everyone. By bringing free live music into the heart of Soho, we want to celebrate the incredible artists performing today while recognising the wider network of grassroots venues that helps make careers like their possible.”

You don't have to grab a ticket to secure your slot, but if you're keen to go, it's worth snapping up a free ticket via Ronnie Scott’s website.

The line up for both stages includes:

• BLUE LAB BEATS
• SUMMER PEARL
• NEONE THE WONDERER
  GRAMN
• JACKSON MATHOD
• DANIEL CASIMIR BIG BAND
• SHAE UNIVERSE
• GUVNA B
• RONNIE SCOTT’S GOSPEL CHOIR
• MARLON THE PANNIST

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Legendary crooner Bob Dylan is going out on tour yet again, including a string of upcoming London dates later this year.

Testament to the confidence in Dylan’s continuing ability to shift tickets, a five night-residency at the Royal Festival Hall has been announced for this December — just a handful of months away.

The run of gigs begins on Thursday 3rd December, running through to Tuesday, 8th December, with a break on the Sunday.

London’s Royal Festival Hall has capacity for somewhre in the region of 2,700 attendees, so even adding all the dates together we’re only getting close to the capacity of a single night at The O2. Would we rather see the gravelly-voiced one at the more intimate Royal Festival Hall? Absolutely.

Tickets go on sale at 10am on 22nd July, but there is of course a presale period. This begins two days earlier at 10am on 20th July, and the venue’s presale requires a membership of the Southbank Centre. These start at £60 a year and include access to the Hayward Gallery.

Ticket prices start at £92 a pop, plus a £4 booking fee, and it’s listed as a 2.5 hour show, suggesting we’re not getting a full line-up with support acts this time.

Of course, one benefit of the Southbank Centre’s relatively modern layout is there’s not really a bad seat in the house. And those seats are typically a lot more comfy than those of one of the ancient and beloved West End theatres.

The residency is part of a wider UK tour that sees Dylan play in a selection of arenas and relatively intimate halls and opera houses across the country. Here’s the full list of dates outside of London:

• 25th November - Bournemouth, Windsor Hall
• 26th November - Birmingham, BP Pulse Live
• 27th November - Sheffield, Utilia Arena
• 30th November - Blackpool, Opera House
• 1st December - Blackpool, Opera House

The Royal Festival Hall gigs will mark Dylan’s first concerts in London since his three-day stint at the Royal Albert Hall in 2024. And this was a sequel of sorts to a 2022 four-run concert series at the London Palladium.

Kudos to Dylan’s management — these kind of venues are exactly where the 85-year-old singer is most likely to shine brightest, among London’s offerings.

The Royal Festival Hall’s other upcoming gigs are Pulp tomorrow night, 18th July, Kenny G on 23rd August and Billy Corgan on 1st and 2nd September. What a mix.

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

• What to watch: new movies and TV shows to stream this week

Last week, I made my West End debut at the London Palladium. Well, kind of. I was on stage in a scaffold cage with around 74 other members of the audience of Jesus Christ Superstar watching Sam Ryder making his West End debut as Jesus.

Many Londoners know Sam Ryder as 'that long-haired guy in the spangly suit who almost won us Eurovision'. Now, the Brit-nominated singer-songwriter is hitting the headlines in the lead role of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera, which tells the story of the last days of Jesus’ life through the eyes of Judas Iscariot.

It’s been highly anticipated. After performing the show’s iconic song Gethsemane on the BBC’s Big Night of Musicals, Ryder 'broke the internet' (not in a Kimmy K kinda way, I should add). So many people flocked to grab a ticket that the booking site crashed momentarily.

There’s also been a buzz about the show’s immersive on-stage standing tickets and lots of people have been wondering what it’s like to see the show from behind the cast. I got my hot little hands on a pair to find out.

Joining the mob — and leaving time behind

Firstly, the logistics. Because I would be onstage, I got an email beforehand with key information: wear dark clothing without large logos, don’t bring big bags (you can’t take anything with you onto the stage) and arrive in plenty of time (an hour before the show starts and no later than 40 minutes before – if you’re not there on time, you’ll have to miss the first half as they won’t let you in until the interval). Thankfully, I’m an early bird by nature and there was no chance I’d miss the first half.

I had to join a separate queue specifically for those with onstage standing tickets. It was clearly signed but the snake of all-black outfits was an immediate clue. Once the doors opened, we shuffled through the security process: being scanned with metal detector wands, adorned with scarlet wristbands and locking phones and smartwatches into Yondr pouches that we couldn’t open until after the show.

After all this, the staff asked us to be back by the doors by 7pm to be let onstage and there was some consternation as we realised we had no way of telling time. Apart from two of the 75 onstage audience members with analogue watches, we had all just sealed our only time-telling devices securely into the locked phone pouch.

The guidance to dress in dark, plain clothes is taken seriously – one lady was asked to remove her striking necklace of large, colourful stars in case it glinted in the stage lights and distracted the seated audience. After more security checks, we were each given a bottle of water and escorted past several props – including the iconic crown of thorns – to our place under the scaffolding.

No singing, no touching

A member of the crew – who stayed with us throughout the show – briefed us on how to behave and reminded us not to sing along. Most importantly, we were not to touch any of the cast. This stern warning sounded slightly silly until the show erupted around us and Sam Ryder was standing so close that I could make out the lace front of his wig (although his own natural hair is pretty perfect for the role of Jesus, this made sense when I saw the amount of blood and glitter plastered to his luscious locks in the second half).

Had I reached out (I didn’t, promise) I would have easily been close enough to touch him, and some of the ensemble even knocked into us at times as they clambered through our enclosure to their position onstage.

Being onstage was an assault on the senses. With the orchestra sitting directly above our heads and the cast swirling on all sides, I didn’t know where to look. As well as the action exploding all around, we caught other moments like Ryder whispering with the stage manager just offstage or the superfan in the pink shirt in the second row who sang along to every single word.

At the interval, we had to leave the stage and had just 10 minutes to get to the loo (or bar) and back to start our security checks again. One lady had clearly missed the memo that drinks from the bar aren’t allowed onstage and had to chug two glasses of wine at the door. As we trailed back in like kids on a school trip, we glimpsed the cast preparing for the Last Supper scene that opens the second half.

The highlight of the show was the monumental Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say) in which Jesus asks God what is the point of his sacrifice. Even though I could only see the back of Ryder’s head while he nailed every note, it gave me chills. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a standing ovation happen part-way through a show and I was only disappointed I couldn’t be part of it, given that I was already on my feet.

Worthy of a second coming

I wanted to ask Ryder what it was like taking on this epic role with such demanding vocals. I figured our instructions not to touch the cast also extended to not subjecting the cast to spontaneous onstage interviews so I loitered around the stage door afterwards to try to nab a word. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one. The street was choked with fans hoping for a signature or a selfie and I realised I’d been far closer to the star onstage all evening than I had any chance of getting at the stage door.

My attempts to ask Ryder few questions via his PR team were also foiled (he’s a very busy man these days!) but he shared a few thoughts on Instagram about how grateful he is to be part of the production – a journey which started in the studio with Lloyd Webber in 2023 when Ryder pushed his luck by asking if they could perform Gethsemane together. “He said yes and proceeded to play it up a tone from the original key (imagine the fear) but I guess that was my audition,” he writes.

His joy at being part of such a prestigious production is palpable during the (second) standing ovation as the show closes. “I think I’ve been searching for the last six years for the feeling that I got when I sang Gethsemane for the first time,” he says in one Instagram video. “I guess I am trying to follow the breadcrumbs as to where I can make that happen more.”

Although I can't really count treading the boards at the Palladium as my West End debut, 15 of the cast can. “There’s something absolutely beautiful about a show that celebrates a legendary piece of theatre with 56 years of history and heritage while simultaneously welcoming so many new voices onto such a prestigious stage for the very first time,” Ryder writes.

By the time we were led back out to the foyer and unlocked our phone pouches, I had decided that I only want to see musicals from onstage from now on. But when Johan Persson’s incredible press photos came out, they were so spectacular that I felt a bit sad that I hadn't been in the audience to see the extravaganza from the front. The only solution, I suppose, is that I’ll have to go back.

Sam Ryder is starring as Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar at The London Palladium until Saturday 5 September 2026, and at Theatre Royal Drury Lane from Friday 16 October 2026 to Saturday 9 January 2027. The show goes on its UK tour from 11 February to 23 October 2027. Tickets are available via london.jesuschristsuperstar.com and uktour.jesuschristsuperstar.com.

• The 9 best shows heading up to Edinburgh Fringe this year, and where you can catch them in London before they go

London summers can often feel like some kind of romcom, in that both ends of the good-bad times spectrum are covered; one minute you’re hot and sweating on the tube as a stranger’s armpit makes contact with your nose and knocks a coffee from your hands to a woman dressed in white who then happens to be your new boss / mother in law / important other. The next you’re wandering down a warm summer street, drinking Aperols on a rooftop with friends and finding a free waterside cinema where you end up sharing popcorn with a mysterious (but harmless) stranger who you may or may not have a rendezvous / romantic encounter with. Luckily, there are plenty of summer events kicking off to help tip the balance towards the fun frisson-esque moments rather than the former.

One of these is the King’s Cross Summer Sounds festival, which is returning for 2026. It’s a free music and performance festival which takes place across August in Coal Drop’s Yard. 2026 marks the festival’s 11th year, and they’re rolling out an impressive lineup to celebrate. In true romcom style, you just turn up, no tickets, or bookings required.

Running from 13th-23rd August, the festival is one of those things that you never really remember is on until you’re wandering through King’s Cross hearing lovely music drifting towards you, then you turn a corner and bam, there’s a full festival complete with extraordinarily comfortable deck chairs and people dancing. It’s one of those events that regenerates the “God this is a great place to live” moments.

Even though you may prioritise the vibes over being a die-hard fan of the musicians performing, that doesn’t mean there’s not a seriously decent lineup. Lightroom’s Bowie Nights takes over the stage in Coal Drops Yard for the opening night on Thursday 13 August with sets featuring unique Bowie covers played by Jack Kaye (formerly The Magic Gang) and rising alternative star Ashaine White. Plus, following those performances, the festival has promised “an explosive secret headline performance” which will be announced closer to the opening date.

On Friday 14 August, there will be performances from Little Grandad, who are fast becoming one of London’s most talked-about new bands, with support from pop, indie and R&B artist Len Blake.

It’s not all pop and indie tracks, though, as the festival will be hosting the Motown Gospel Choir to help celebrate 35 years of pioneering jazz development charity Tomorrow’s Warriors. There will also be folk music from Mishra and some more progressive instrumental folk tunes from Pons Aelius. Other performers include a West End Musical Choir, Kimmy Beatbox, Thandi Phoenix.

If you're after some summer tunes, or just happen to be passing through King's Cross in August, why not make a detour and hear some lovely live music? No tickets, no fees, no booking, and no one trying to sell you a £12 bottle of water. Good times, eh?

You can find the full lineup and all the information at the website here.

• The BIG London gig list 2026: Your guide to this year's very best shows, festivals and concerts

Rock band The Kinks are the quartet that launched a thousand ending credits in great noughties films. From hits like You Really Got Me to Sunny Afternoon, their lyrics have been chanted, wheezed, sung, and bopped along to for decades. Now, over twenty years after they disbanded, the two leading brothers are reuniting for a new art exhibition in London.

60 years on from forming The Kinks, Ray and Dave Davies' reunion comes in collaboration with painter Christian Furr at Gibson Garage in London. The exhibition is called Brothers, and Christian Furr has created a series of new original paintings, all based on a reimagining of a passport photograph of the brothers together, which was taken in 1968.

Running from 24th July until 6th September, the exhibition’s home will rather suitably be at the Gibson Garage, the flagship UK home of the same iconic guitar brand whose instruments formed a key part of the Kinks’ signature sound.

Artist Christian Furr is probably best known for being the youngest artist ever commissioned to paint the late Queen Elizabeth II and has exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and the Saatchi Gallery, to name a few. Moving from monarchical royalty to musical royalty, Furr said he drew inspiration from “Matisse, punk, pop art, luminosity, and keeping that colour as bright as possible” and added that for him “that is what I see when I listen to The Kinks.”

If you were wondering how powerful the portraits are, Dave Davies was “moved to tears” when he saw the works for the first time, “and immediately began painting on them himself”.

“It was a magic moment when we crammed into the photobooth all those years ago,” Dave reminisced. “Christian Furr has done a wonderful job in developing the image into special artworks,” he added.

Ray Davies spoke about the collection saying, “It’s great to be doing something new with Dave, and seeing these paintings and the original passport photo booth picture again brings back a lot of memories.” Talking about the creativity and the Kinks’ legacy, he reflected that “Over the years it’s been amazing to see creative people take our music and make something of their own”, which is exactly what Furr has done.

Hailed as one of the 100 greatest artists of all time by Rolling Stone, The Kinks became vital influences for Blondie, The Jam, The Ramones, The Clash, Black Sabbath, The Doors, The Pretenders, and Van Halen. The Who’s Pete Townsend once said: “The Kinks invented a new kind of language for pop songwriting that influenced me from the very beginning.”Ray’s songwriting was so influential to Blur and Oasis that he earned the nickname “the Godfather of Britpop." The Kinks were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

To celebrate the exhibition, Gibson and RedHouse Originals are dropping free limited-edition prints in three secret London locations linked to the band’s history. While all paintings are signed by Ray, Dave, and Christian, a small number of signed, limited-edition prints will also be signed by Dave Davies and Christian Furr and available to fans on a first come first serve basis at the exhibition opening on 24 July.

Every painting in the exhibition will be signed by Ray and Dave Davies and Christian Furr. The paintings and a collection of limited-edition prints will be available to buy from Red House Originals, with limited edition prints starting at £195

The Kinks: Brothers is at Gibson Garage, London, from 24 July–6 September 2026. Open Monday-Friday 11am-7pm, Saturday 10am-7pm, Sunday 12-6pm.

• The best exhibitions in London this summer: From Escher to Bowie to Marilyn Monroe

It was an apocalyptic 39°C as Madrid’s Mad Cool festival kicked off its tenth anniversary celebrations last week, and the festival’s organisers pulled out all the stops. For good reason, too: at this rate there might not be a planet left for a 20th anniversary return.

Making the most of the time we’ve all got left, Mad Cool nabbed the line-up of summer 2026, with headliners Foo Fighters, Lorde, Pulp, Florence + The Machine and Nick Cave soaking up the UV for our sweaty pleasure across the July four-dayer.

Having melted for the cause to bring you highlights from the festival each day, here's our full final review of what's certain to be the festival to beat for 2026.

JULY 8th | DAY ONE

Jehnny Beth

Like a vampire boxer eyeing up the Mad Cool crowd for its next throat, it feels almost criminal to put Jehnny Beth onstage while the sun’s still shining. But Jehnny Beth’s familiars come out in force for the Mad Cool tent’s opening act. She puts them to the test — not only with the nu-metal tinged onslaught of Broken Rib from latest album You Heartbreaker, You, but with a literal onstage push-up competition (resulting in a very respectable 23 push-ups in 39°C heat from one game fan).

It’s with a wink and a smirk that Beth prowls — the dark tunes cut through with wit and humour. If there were any doubters to challenge Beth’s place as the coolest act at the festival, a brooding cover of Bjork’s Army of Me lays them to (eternal) rest. (GL)

The Last Dinner Party

One of the benefits of a European festival over a UK one is you can often see acts that would inhabit just-off-headliner slots earlier in the day — and with smaller crowds, too.

The Last Dinner Party’s 7:30pm Mad Cool slot equates to around 4pm in London day festival currency. And while the band’s regency era lampshade dresses aren’t the obvious fit for heatwave weather, the catchy pop tunes and knowingly arch dramatics are fit for all seasons.

As ever, singer Abigail Morris lights up the stage’s video screens with her Kate Bush-referencing dancing, while the unabashed pop structure and dynamics of the songs keep the crowd up. And when the tempo and energy is brought down with one of Lizzie Mayland’s lead tracks, they’re well signposted enough to act like a hydration break, not a derailing.

The only issue was sound bleed from the main stage, with the somewhat more po-faced Mexican rock band The Warning’s set running through the first half of The Last Dinner Party’s. But given Mad Cool’s tightly designed festival ground layout, these things are as much down to the whims of the wind as anything else. (AW)

The Vaccines

Some of the best festival bands are those that don’t require you to be a fan beforehand to enjoy. The Vaccines fit into that category even if the heady days of their 2011 debut album are now far enough away to justify a 15-year anniversary tour.

The songs are catchy, unfussy and never outstay their welcome. And if you are at least of a certain vintage, there’s a good chance you know more of them than you’d guess beforehand. Their original signature sound had perhaps undesirable, unfashionable results in just the previous decade, but on stage they have little of the baggage of those often more preening forebears. And little of their more synth-heavy recent style comes to the fore in this festival set.

The Vaccines: an altogether good time for fans and non-fans alike. It’s just a shame that having to compete with concurrent sets from Foo Fighters and Moby would doubtless have squeezed out many potential casual wanderers-by — not that the third-batting stage was left wanting for viewers. (AW)

Wolf Alice

Britain’s best band? Right now Wolf Alice might be the best band in the world, period. A day one highlight, the Camden crew tore through a scorching early evening main-stage set drawing mostly from latest album The Clearing and 2021’s Blue Weekend, seesawing between tender heart-tugging (The Last Man on Earth) to buzzsaw scream-alongs (Play the Greatest Hits).

That emotional pendulum swing is personified in Ellie Roswell, on stage both soulful and savage, playfully trying out some GCSE Spanish before pummeling the crowd with megaphone howls. By the time cathartic closer Don’t Delete the Kisses rings out, the crowd’s left torn between confessing unrequited loves long lost, or simply smashing the place up. Gorgeous. (GL)

Moby

Richard Melville Hall — Moby — looks simultaneously not all that different to the man who put out the iconic Play in 1999, and also like a version of Santa Claus who has got far too into Ozempic. His schtick is the same delightfully watchable thing as ever.

Moby is the most incongruous element on his own stage. The unremarkable white man in white. The singer who can’t sing. The guitar-wielding non-star sprinting from one end of the stage to the other while never achieving — or even attempting to achieve — an actual rock star gait or presence.

And yet, it all just meshes with the top backing band and vibrant AV light show, forming a good-time party gumbo.

At the root of it all is what has given Moby such decades-spanning longevity: the tunes are rock-solid all timers that are recognisable remix after remix, not to mention once they’ve been rearranged to hell and back. A suitable alternative headliner to Foo Fighters for those who feel more at home with house than rock — a trickier goal than it sounds. And not only because Moby and Grohl have both been enmeshed in a face-palm relationship scandal in recent years. (AW)

Foo Fighters

As far as penitential rites go, Dave Grohl and crew’s two and a half hour sprint down memory lane wipes the slate clean. The Foo Fighters’ hearts-and-minds approach to touring in 2026 sees them rattling through three decades of hits in raucous fashion, kicking off with the heartbeat stab of All My Life to a giant crowd of sweat-glistened fans. It may be a festival headline slot, but Mad Cool day 1 is very much a Foos gig, judging by the sea of double-F t-shirts and tattoos on site.

For the 57,000 capacity crowd, this is as much a lesson in alt-rock history as it is a fan-favourites set: the Foos nod to each member’s past glories, with Pat Smear’s turn in US punk pioneers Germs celebrated with a cover of Manimal, Nate Mendel’s Sunny Day Real Estate getting a nod with a verse and chorus of Seven, and Chris Shifflet’s No Use for a Name cover Invincible inspiring the biggest pit of the night. Two, in fact, swirling despite the heat in a mirror battle on either side of the crowd safety divider. It’s a reminder that the Foos were a supergroup of sorts long before stadiums became their home.

The night’s a reminder, too, of the Foo’s knack for writing a killer pop song. Learn to Fly, My Hero, Breakout and Monkey Wrench are hook-filled entries into the rock and roll canon, while Aurora (dedicated here to late drummer Taylor Hawkins) and its cosmic balladry reveals the heart-on-sleeve core that’s made them a favourite around the world.

From the bubblegum delights of early hit Big Me to the roar of Best of You, there’s something for everyone here — and Grohl’s campaign to turn every human on the planet into a Foo Fighters fan gets permission to march on for another 30 years. (GL)

JULY 9th | DAY TWO

CMAT

“Someone has a flag of me not winning the Mercury Prize. Thank you so much — you can't win ‘em all” says Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, AKA CMAT, who instead wins the ‘Opener of the Festival’ title on day two of Mad Cool. It’s a day-glo crowd of devotees who turn up for the brisk seven song set, seemingly shipped in straight from the UK and Ireland, if the number of Tricolour flags on show are anything to go by.

The Dubliner’s breezy alt-country set mixes love with laughs (Ciara should be a comedian if the pipes ever give way), with Take a Sexy Picture of Me inspiring a mass singalong in the early evening sun. It’s another scorching day in Madrid, and CMAT calls for one final two-step sway from the crowd “if you're excited to join CMAT in our last gig before we die of heat stroke”. They’re only too happy to oblige as I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby! kicks in — squint through the heat haze and this Dublin-via-Madrid hoedown could whisk you away to the Grand Ole Opry itself. (GL)

Lorde

Now here’s one that caused a rift in the Shortlist team. Is Lorde one of the most interesting big-name pop acts going, or just too low energy and grey-adjacent to really fly sat amid the technicolour style and energy of Zara Larsson and CMAT?

I’m a firm believer in the former. Her impressive Mad Cool set spans her entire discography, mildly reworking some of their arrangements with a backing band in (non)holy cross arrangement of keyboard and synth units — a Kraftwerk visual but not one that pushed this pop icon into anything but a lightly electronic-laced pop act. Business as usual.

The staging is a little odd, though, with giant back boxes for Lorde to clamber about on. They occasionally hint at lightshow elements as a definitely-not-real display of her heart rate ticks on like a hummingbird. At one point she dons a jacket with basically a small army of laser pointers glued to its fabric. You can’t help but feel some of it would land better without blazing sunshine and near-40-degree weather — but darkness is a luxury not many Summer festival acts get, in either Madrid or the UK.

She ends the set deep in the crowd, a sea parted by a handy security corridor, while letting loose some undeniable late set bangers including Green Light. And even if you aren’t enraptured by her lower-voltage sonic energy, you may at least be shamed into going back to the gym — Lorde currently looks like she’s come fresh from competing at the Olympics. (AW)

Zara Larsson

The sheer popularity of Zara Larsson tested the seams of Mad Cool’s staging. Larsson had a second stage, third-place act set, putting pressure on the mid-capacity space. And with no main stage act on as alternative programming, the enthused crowd swamped half of the festival ground as a massed sea of people.

It was headliner vibes three hours early, but Mad Cool’s tight stage arrangement doesn’t allow for secondary sound towers, leaving those who didn’t get there early to either accept transistor radio sound or start pushing through the masses. The results were worth a bit of crowd-weaving aggression though, even if that risked elbowing countless pre-teen girls in the face.

Larsson’s set dressing was based around a song that doesn’t bother her Spotify most-listened list, but fits the festival scene visual. Part way through the set, a campy pink Barbie-indebted car prop enters the stage, letting Larsson reference the Hot & Sexy lyrics about hanging out with your hot girlfriends — a viral TikTok sensation as well as a perfect match for the crowd sentiment. Most of them were singing along, even if they couldn’t quite hear Larsson herself as well as they hoped.

A stunning, high-energy set matched with unparalleled audience energy. But also proof Larsson needs a main stage placement next time. (AW)

Florence + The Machine

With more than 15 years of festival headliner experience under her vintage market belt, Florence Welch makes the top-slot job seem effortless and natural.

The band can now mine decades of recognisable hits, delivered with an earnestness that’s still light, and a call for emotion and feeling that manages to mostly avoid being too cloying or performative. The dance-led theatrics are offset by a simple focus on what Florence + The Machine are — a band with an undeniably captivating singer and the Earth Mother witchy bangers to back her up.

You’re encouraged to scream, to put your bloody phone away and enjoy the moment for once — a command almost all of the audience obeys. While some of the closing songs are now old enough to be the subject of a nostalgia tour, Florence + The Machine are consistent enough (and always just outside of trendy enough) to avoid seeming a retro throwback among the day’s younger and hotter acts. (AW)

We also saw…

Chloe Slater from Manchester, who plays light and digestible guitar-led pop-rock with chunkier themes than that summary might suggest, including the plight of the Palestinians in 2025 single War Crimes.