Hermosa Beach legends PENNYWISE are gearing up for their return to Oz next month and are bringing with them, for the first time to our shores, fellow Californian punk rockers CIRCLE JERKS to play seven shows along with special guests, Civic who will open all shows *.
Saturday, September 17: Chelsea Heights Hotel, Melbourne SOLD OUT
Sunday, September 18: The Forum, Melbourne
Tuesday, September 20: Uni Bar, Wollongong
Wednesday, September 21: Drifters Wharf, Gosford
Friday, September 23: Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Saturday, September 24: Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane
Sunday, September 25: Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide
Tuesday, September 27: Metropolis, Fremantle
* Civic not appearing in Gosford
The tour will mark Pennywise’s first return to Australia since last visiting to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their ARIA certified Gold stratus album Straight Ahead – the band’s highest charting album to date (number 8 in the ARIA charts).
Fletcher Dragge enthuses; “Finally Pennywise gets to come back to our home away from home, Australia! Where the beer flows nonstop, along with the chaos. Never a dull moment on a Pennywise tour down under… only one thing could make it better than usual, and that would be coming to town with our mentors and long-time friends THE CIRCLE JERKS!!! They are back with a vengeance! This is gonna be an off the f***ing hook nonstop party! And we can’t wait! Get your tix, get on the booze, and get in the pit, we’re coming for you f***ers!!!!!”
Formed in the South Bay of Los Angeles, a neighbourhood with a rich punk rock history, Pennywise began in 1988. The band would go on to amass an international following with their combustible chemistry which delivered some of punk rock culture’s strongest songs. Pennywise classics like ‘Same Old Story’, ‘Alien’ and ‘Homesick’ are as fundamental to punk rock and hardcore as stage dives and guitars.
Emerging from the punk underbelly of LA’s South Bay in 1979, Keith Morris (Black Fag, OFF!) and Greg Hetson (Red Kross, Bad Religion) formed Circle Jerks, who quickly became the innovators of a movement simply referred to today as HARDCORE PUNK ROCK.
Melbourne powerhouse Civic will open all shows on the tour (except for Gosford). Forming in 2018 and bonding over a shared love of tightly coiled riffs and a collective musical ethos, Civic have found a home somewhere between 80’s glam rock and Australia’s 70’s greats. Paying homage to the classics, but pivoting on them with an avant-charged edge.
Raw, searing guitars; pummeling rhythms; driving bass; with vocals that lock into and synergise with their wall of sound. Balanced by the raucous and restrained weaving of melodies and textures, the imbued sense of nostalgia. Driving and tenacious, but never losing sight of a good hook and how to use it, Civic don’t tip-toe around the edges – but obliterate them with primal intensity!
This historic pairing of hardcore punk heavyweights will be leaving devastation in their wake this September.