Buzzcocks and Lambrini Girls join Iggy Pop’s Dog Day Afternoon punk spectacular in London

8 March, 2023

Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Ava-Adore of Lambrini Girls, Iggy Pop and Steve

The next wave of acts have been announced for Iggy Pop‘s Dog Day Afternoon event, with Buzzcocks and Lambrini Girls now joining the bill.

Back in November, the Punk icon announced that he will take over Crystal Palace Park on Saturday, July 1 with a special one-day event, featuring sets from Blondie and Generation Sex.

The latter band features Billy Idol and Tony James of Generation X, as well as Sex Pistols‘ Steve Jones and Paul Cook. The Crystal Palace date serves as Generation Sex’s first-ever UK appearance, while Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock will also now play live with Blondie.

Tickets are on sale now, and you can purchase yours here.

Celebrating the upcoming event at a London launch event yesterday (March 7) Blondie’s Clem Burke, Matlock, Generation X / Generation Sex’s James and Buzzcocks’ Steve Diggle spoke at a panel discussion.

Matlock recalled how he and Burke first met, sharing: “I remember doing a gig with Sid, a one off gig for a laugh, at the Electric Ballroom. And Blondie came down to that show.”

Clem agreed: “I was definitely there, I arrived with Joan Jett in the back of a pick up truck. Marc Bolan was there with The Damned. I think Glen and I first met around the same time. I reached out to Glen because I was trying to form a band with Eric Faulker from the Bay City Rollers and Paul Weller and myself and Glen – I thought it would’ve been interesting to do that at the time but it never came to fruition. Our friendship developed and we spent many afternoons in the pub on the King’s Road.”

James, meanwhile, explained the gradual formation of their punk supergroup: “It started when we were recording the single ‘Dancing With Myself’ from our third album. We asked Steve Jones to come and ‘Give it some bollocks’, as he would say, on the choruses. He came down to the studio and ended up playing on four or five of tracks on that on that record. It was just so great playing with him in the studio… And Paul was there as well.

“We kind of thought ‘Wow, this could be really good. Maybe we should do something or five of us’ We were gonna have two drummers, Terry [Chimes] and Paul Cook, all playing together, because we rehearsed a bit in the studio. It seemed like a brilliant idea at the time but it wasn’t the right time. So it’s something we’d always considered.”

He continued: “Cut to 2018… Billy called me up and we went to see U2 together. Something that Americans do brilliantly is the VIP area… they walked us through and I suddenly found myself flanked either side by Sean Penn and Brad Pitt.

“Then I saw this smiling face and it was Steve Jones. He said ‘We ought to do something together,’ I agreed and looked at Billy, looked back and Steve had vanished! Six months later, we played shows in Los Angeles to see how it would work and it was such a joyous moment to play together. We thought ‘We must do more of this’ – and here we are!”

Upon the announcement of Dog Day Afternoon, Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry said: “Blondie and Iggy Pop… we are excited to reunite with our friend, the one and only Prince of Punk, Iggy, for this special show in Crystal Palace Park next summer. Once more, with feeling!”

Jones, meanwhile, said: “Just every now and then we find time to get together with old pals from back in the day – purely just for the crack and to have fun. If it ain’t fun then we ain’t interested, life’s too short. And it’s a great bill with Iggy Pop and Blondie.”

As it stands, the upcoming gig will mark Pop’s first UK performance since he played at London’s Barbican Centre in late 2019. That show saw the iconic artist air his album ‘Free’ in its entirety.

Iggy Pop’s new album ‘Every Loser’ came out in January, described by NME in a four-star review as “a raucous return to his roots” from The Godfather of Punk.

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