Bikini Kill Have Announced Their First Australian Tour In 25 Years

October 27, 2022

Riot grrrl trailblazers Bikini Kill will return to Australia in 2023 for their first tour in 25 years, following the punk icons’ reunion in 2019. The band – consisting of original members Kathleen Hanna, Tobi Vail and Kathy Wilcox along with The Julie Ruin‘s Sara Landeau – will play four headline shows in March of next year, performing in Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

In addition to their own shows, Bikini Kill will be performing as part of the Perth Festival and Victoria’s Golden Plains Festival in March, and Hobart’s Mona Foma Festival in late February. Tickets for the band’s headline shows in Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne are on sale next Monday, 31st October, while tickets for the Sydney Opera House date will go on sale next Friday, 4th November.

Bikini Kill – ‘Rebel Girl’

Following their formation in Olympia, Washington in 1990, Bikini Kill released two studio albums, several EPs and a compilations’ worth of fierce feminist punk, pioneering the riot grrrl genre alongside acts like Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, Excuse 17, Huggy Bear and Team Dresch.

In 1997, following the release of final album, Reject All American, and a tour of Australia, Bikini Kill called it quits. Hanna went on to front electro-punk act Le Tigre and later founded The Julie Ruin with Wilcox. In 2017, Hanna, Wilcox and Vail reunited to play one song as part of a one-off book launch event, and in 2019, regrouped for a string of North American, European and UK dates.