News: Descendents bring Everything Sucks anniversary tour to Australia and New Zealand

Southern California punk lifers Descendents are heading back this way, announcing a June run across Australia and New Zealand that doubles as a 30-year salute to Everything Sucks. Call it a victory lap, call it a group therapy session set to power chords. Either way, it lands with the blunt-force honesty the band have always specialised in.

Released in 1996, Everything Sucks arrives at a strange hinge point in punk history. Grunge is fading, pop-punk is about to explode, and Descendents sound less interested in scenes than in survival. The record is lean, sarcastic and emotionally exposed, bottling the urgency that has defined the band since their late-70s beginnings in Manhattan Beach. Three decades on, those songs still feel wired directly to the nervous system.

The Run Down Under tour puts Everything Sucks front and centre, but this is no museum exercise. Descendents have never traded in nostalgia without friction. Expect the anniversary tracks to sit alongside a career-spanning set that pulls from across their catalogue, delivered with the same velocity and self-awareness that’s kept them one of punk rock’s most consistent propositions.

With Milo Aukerman, Bill Stevenson, Stephen Egerton and Karl Alvarez locking in as tightly as ever, these shows promise the familiar Descendents paradox. Songs that sound like jokes until they hurt. Choruses built for shouting along while quietly dismantling you. Thirty years on, the title still fits, and somehow that’s the point.

TOUR DATES
Wed, June 3: Barwon Heads Hotel, Barwon Heads
Fri, June 5: Forum, Melbourne
Sat, June 6: Odeon Theatre, Hobart
Mon, June 8: The Gov, Adelaide
Tue, June 9: Astor, Perth
Thu, June 11: Roundhouse, Sydney
Fri, June 12: Tivoli, Brisbane
Sat, June 13: The Balcony (Coolangatta Hotel), Gold Coast
Tue, June 16: Meow Nui, Wellington
Wed, June 17: Powerstation, Auckland