Lydia Lunch returns to Australia in 2026 with a run of shows that refuse easy categorisation, teaming up with Tex Perkins for three special performances in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney while also bringing her Songs of Suicide & Alan Vega series across the country.
It’s a pairing that makes sense once you sit with it. Lunch, a defining figure of New York’s late-’70s No Wave scene, has always worked in extremes — spoken word that cuts close to the bone, performances that feel less like shows and more like confrontations. Perkins, best known for his work with The Cruel Sea and Beasts of Bourbon, arrives here in a different form entirely. Under his “Basic” moniker, he strips things back to laptop, guitar and voice, building dark, electronic soundscapes that feel deliberately unstable.
Together, the format is stark. Lunch delivers her spoken word — direct, unflinching, often brutally intimate — while Perkins constructs a shifting backdrop that moves between ambient drift and fractured noise. It’s less a collaboration in the traditional sense and more a shared space, each pushing against the other.
Lunch’s presence carries decades of weight. Emerging from the CBGB orbit that also produced Blondie, Patti Smith, Ramones and Talking Heads, she built a body of work that spans music, film, writing and performance, always pushing at the edges of form. Her collaborations — from Sonic Youth to Einstürzende Neubauten and Henry Rollins — read like a map of the underground’s most restless minds.
Running alongside these shows is her Songs of Suicide & Alan Vega project. Joined by Andrew Coates of Black Cab, Lunch revisits the work of Suicide and its late frontman Alan Vega, with whom she shared a long creative history. Having performed impromptu versions of the show in Australia before, this marks its first full run across the country, timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Vega’s passing.
What ties all of this together is intent. Lunch has never been interested in nostalgia, and these performances don’t soften her work into something retrospective. Instead, they feel immediate, even urgent — a continuation of a practice that has always thrived on discomfort, confrontation and release.
SO REAL IT HURTS – LYDIA LUNCH & TEX PERKINS – JUNE 2026
Fri 19th – Kew Courthouse, Melbourne- Tickets
Sat 20th – Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane – Tickets
Sat 27th – Riverside Live at Phive, Sydney – Tickets
LYDIA LUNCH PERFORMS THE SONGS OF SUICIDE AND ALAN VEGA
featuring Andrew Coates (Black Cab)
AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND – JUNE 2026
Sun 14 June – Meow, Wellington, NZ (as part of Lōemis) – Tickets
Wed 17 June – The Tote, Melbourne (with Black Cab) – Tickets
Sat 20 June – Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane – Tickets
Sun 21 June – Factory Floor, Sydney – Tickets
Wed 24 June – Ed Castle, Adelaide – Tickets
Thurs 25 June – The Milk Bar, Perth – Tickets
