
V**gra Boys Announce Australia + New Zealand Tour
Press Release – Frontier Touring Company
Following a sold-out rampage across Australia last November – and currently tearing through a riotous world tour in support of their new album, viagr aboys – Swedish post-punkers V**gra Boys announce their live return in January, including the band's first visit to Aotearoa with the infinite anxiety tour of 2026: Australia and New Zealand.
Led by the gravel-throated, gleefully unfiltered Sebastian Murphy, six-piece V**gra Boys are one of the world's most unmissable bands, a reputation earned through relentless international touring – including a recent set at Coachella, where they kicked off their current world tour (watch here) – and chaotic headline shows that blend satire, sleaze, and saxophone.
After dissecting a world ruled by terminally-online conspiracy theorists on 2022's Cave World, fourth album viagr aboys paces through the crude grimy places where they themselves fit in the nonsense. One of the V**gra Boys' greatest strengths is their ability to tear down everything and nothing at the same time. Murphy and his compatriots will build a charred groove, pick out surreal bursts of imagery to perfectly gouge at the sheen of societal normalcy, and then remind you that you're probably wrong to trust their judgment.
Touching down in January 2026, the post-punkers will hit Auckland's Powerstation in a long-overdue debut NZ performance on Thursday 15 January, before embarking on a run of their biggest Australian venues to date: Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Fremantle.
Tickets for all shows go on sale Friday 16 May (1pm local time) via frontiertouring.com/vboys. Frontier and Penny Drop members can access early presale tickets via promoter presales, starting Thursday 15 May (11am local time).
Renowned for their explosive live energy and razor-sharp wit, on lead single and album opener 'Man Made of Meat' Murphy taunts your mum's OnlyFans and hopes to score some free women's sweaters from LL Bean. And as the album evolves, V**gra Boys work through churning post-punk, post-apocalyptic dub, and skronking rock while denouncing 'smoking crypto' and detailing a journey 'stealing Poseidon's trident from the Navy SEALs.' Through it all, the band looks out at the endless expanse of Walmarts and crystal healers, searching for some twisted solace: 'the important part of being alive in the big, stupid world is figuring out the world inside of you that is equally big and stupid.''
V**gra Boys. January 2026. It's gonna get weird. Don't miss out!
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

RNZ News
2 days ago
- RNZ News
Mother of Chooks: Jesse Leaman on his tender chicken documentary
Mother of Chooks is a joyful short documentary which follows Australian woman Elaine James who has become a minor celebrity - all because she keeps pet chickens. It was after losing her sister, that Elaine found companionship in a rescue chicken named Flapper - who she takes with her to cafes, parks, and has even toilet trained. Elaine has become a local legend - known as the Mother of Chooks. The short documentary film Mother of Chooks is showing at the nationwide Doc Edge Festival starting later this month. Susie speaks to co-director Jesse Leaman about this heartwarming story and what it was like to work alongside his mum who was also involved in the project. Photo: Mother of Chooks


Scoop
3 days ago
- Scoop
The Band CAMINO Announce Live Return To Australia & New Zealand: The NeverAlways Tour
Press Release – Frontier Touring Company The Band CAMINO is back and bigger than ever. MG Live and Frontier Touring are excited to announce the Nashville-based trio will make their highly anticipated return to Australia and New Zealand this summer, with the NeverAlways world tour: including five headline dates in February 2026 in Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle. Two years on from their first sold-out tour down under, today's news sees the band – Jeffery Jordan, Spencer Stewart, and Garrison Burgess – also officially announcing their forthcoming third studio album, NeverAlways, arriving July 25th via Atlantic Records (pre-order here). The 11-track collection is previewed today by new tracks and videos: 'Stupid Questions' and 'Hates Me Yet (222)'. ' Both 'Stupid Questions' and 'Hates Me Yet (222)' came from a similar headspace – that spiral you slip into when you care a little too much and think a little too hard,' explains Jeffery Jordan. ' We wanted these songs and their visuals to capture the way overthinking can feel both ridiculous and heavy at the same time… two sides to the same door, except one's a smirk and the other's a blow to the chest.' The band's NeverAlways headline tour kicks off in Atlanta, GA this October, starting with a 28-date North American run ahead of European dates in December, the Australian leg continuing through February 2026. For full routing and ticket information, please visit Tickets for the AU/NZ shows go on sale Friday 27 June (10am local time) via Frontier members can access early presale tickets via the promoter presale, starting Wednesday 25 June (10am local time). The NeverAlways era kicked off last month with 'Infinity', co-written with longtime collaborators Seth Ennis and Schmidt (capturing the classic CAMINO sound first heard on hit singles 'Daphne Blue' and 'See Through') and 'Baggy Jeans,' co-written with Captain Cuts. The forthcoming album also features collaborators Jonah Shy (Role Model, Shawn Mendes) & Gabe Simon (Noah Kahan, Gracie Abrams). ' All at once, the music is the juxtaposition of who we've been, where we're going, and where we're headed,' Jordan continues. ' We wouldn't have made this record five years ago. It's a perfect snapshot of what we're listening to, how our tastes have matured, and how we've evolved. We're continuing to take people on a journey.' The Band CAMINO has amassed nearly 1 billion career streams, sold out global headline tours, and received critical acclaim from the likes of Rolling Stone, Billboard and more. Since forming in 2015, they've unleashed a series of fan favourite projects including the My Thoughts On You EP (2016), Heaven EP (2017), tryhard EP (2019), self-titled debut LP The BAND CAMINO (2021), and sophomore LP The Dark (2023). They have delivered showstopping performances on The Kelly Clarkson Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live, in addition to major festival sets at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and more. Now entering their tenth year, the trio has crafted their most substantial body of work yet alongside exhilarating live shows slated through 2026.


Otago Daily Times
5 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Finding the spark of art and science
Visiting for the first time, Australian science explainer Rachel Rayner is bringing her quantum physics stage shows to the New Zealand International Science Festival in Dunedin. She tells Rebecca Fox about the importance of having both art and science in your life. Rachel Rayner likes a bit of glitter and sparkle in her life. "Glitter is just how I reflect more photons (the smallest particle of light) back at the audience, and that's what we all want, more photons." It is not quite what you expect to hear from someone who makes a living out of explaining science to everyday people — especially quantum physics. But Rayner is out to nuke that preconception of the knitted vest and glasses-wearing, professor-type with humour, tights and a metallic gold top. "It's definitely not a lecture. There's a little bit of theatre in there. There's some dancing, some yoga. In A Flying Photon , I try to really embody light. I try to be the wave, a photon of light. And in the second one, I'm trying to be a gold atom. I really want to be a gold atom. So it's a bit absurd. I love a little bit of absurd." For Rayner, arts and science have been a constant presence, one that she could never separate. Always fascinated with scientific research and discovery she also loved performing and communicating. She studied art history and physics at university while doing a drama course in her spare time. "So there was a vague idea to kind of focus in on one, but I just couldn't do one without the other. I feel like the two of them are very intertwined. We need both in our lives. The two are very, very important to each other." So when she discovered the world of science communication it seemed tailor-made for her. She moved to Canberra to do a graduate diploma in science communication (known as the Shell Questacon Science Circus) in 2011. That led to performing science shows in schools and then work at science centres where she helped put on shows and exhibits to explain science to children. "Having that understanding of art and culture in that way to combine the two, I think, is really, really helpful. So I've been really lucky in the path I've followed and just working a lot more in communication and now helping scientists explain the science and research that they do to broad audiences." Rayner is particularly passionate about physics as "that is where the momentum is", she says. "It's just the movement of it, the breaking down our everyday experiences into these really universal concepts. Like, the physics that happen here is the same physics that happens on a planet hundreds of thousands, a hundred million light years away. "It's something about just breaking down the universe into these simple mechanics that I think is just so beautiful and really, really excites me." She began to develop her own shows because she believed people should "give a flying photon about the universe" around them. "I'd done previous shows in the science centres I'd worked in around light. And I get really excited about this, the whole spectrum of light. "So we see a rainbow, but then there's so many more colours of light beyond the ones that we can see. And we use them in our day-to-day life, like they bring us the internet, radios, microwaves, like we use all these different waves of light all the time. But we don't kind of think about them with the wonder and awe that I tend to." While she had spent more than eight years performing shows for children and school audiences, this time she wanted to make a show bringing that love of light to an adult audience. "To have a chance for adults to really sit in that wonder and excitement and have a few more adult jokes in there at the same time. So that's where the first one, A Flying Photon , came about." It was her first time on stage by herself but she had a lot of fun and won best science show at the Adelaide Fringe so she developed her second show, Atomically Correct , about the atom. "So we've kind of explored the photon in the first one and then the next, which is a quantum particle of light. And then the second one, we go down to the quantum physics of the atom and build an atom from scratch, essentially, and kind of lots of tangents. There's a little bit of feminism in there because, you know, a lot of the time I'm a raging feminist." Using physicality and the space on stage to help tell the story and explain high-level science concepts takes work. "Being creative with with the material is really exciting. And just trying to figure out ways to bring humour and wonder to something that I find really fascinating that a lot of people don't. I do understand quantum physics is not something people read about every Saturday morning, so it's really fun to play with these ideas. And they're really wacky. Like, infrared light is a colour of light we can feel. That's just, wow, that's so weird." So working out how to describe things that are completely intangible to many people's minds is the challenge. "How can we use the tools that we have, which is language and physicality, to really kind of explore these concepts?" She also has to understand the science herself and she likes to sit with it and let it percolate as she figures out the best way to explain it. Researching how popular culture approaches the concepts also helps. "I've seen all the Ant-Men movies. So here's the science, here it is in popular culture. How do I want to bring those two together? And that's the play there with the ideas and concepts." Each show takes about a year to write and then another year of playing around with the script on stage. Since premiering the two shows she has toured each for two years. Another aim of her shows is to show the artistic community there is a lot of inspiration in science just waiting to be plunged. "The first time I did the show, I had an art student come up to me afterwards and was like, 'I would never have thought to look to the sciences for inspiration, but I totally will now'. And I was just like, 'oh my gosh, this is actually happening'. And that, to me, was really, really exciting." A similar thing happened with Atomically Correct with scientists coming up to her after the show saying they would never have considered going to the theatre but since it was a science show gave it a go. "So it's this twofold thing, that I'm showing that science can be a wealth of inspiration and bringing people to the theatre to art events." Rayner is proud of those achievements. "They're such small things but they bring me joy." People often say that she should do the shows for children. "I have a lot of child performer energy when I bring them to stage, which I'm aware of. So I call that out a bit at the beginning. It was really important for me to do this for adults because no-one expects that, and I like to break down boundaries where I can. "Yes, I'm bringing the child performer energy, but I try and tone it down and just want a place for us adults to kind of share in that wonder and then pass that wonder on to the children at home or at school. And plus that means I can swear on stage, something I've never been able to do before." It also means she can talk about scientific concepts at a higher level. "One of the things ... is that an atom is mostly nothing. So we're all mostly nothing, but at the end of the day, we still matter. And I feel that's a message better for the adult audience than the younger ones." As the interest in science communication grows — it is now an academic field — Rayner says there is more understanding it can take many different forms. "So the shows that I do are a type of science communication. Poetry can be a type of science communication." Behind the scenes Rayner is also a keen science poetry writer. She discovered the field of science poetry, where people engaged in science use scientific concepts to explore the experiences people have every day, years ago. "We tend to separate art and science. When really both of them, both art and science, are just asking questions about the universe, and perhaps in slightly different ways, but it's questions about the universe and our experiences, and how do we fit in all of that? And so I think that's where the poetry kind of brings those two together really nicely." With science poetry it is important to ensure any scientific concepts referenced are accurate, she says. "So it's that understanding of a particular science phenomenon you want to bring into your poetry. It's like if you're using the science as a metaphor, how are you using it accurately?" But she is aware some people find poetry hard to understand and adding scientific concepts to it can make it harder. It does not matter what form it takes, Rayner is passionate about getting people engaged in science and translating the work of scientists so everyday people understand it and it becomes more commonplace to talk about. And Rayner is not finished with her efforts — she has plans for a third show, this one on electrons. "Obviously that's electricity, which we use every day. We use more and more every day." The inspiration for this show comes from when she was doing a show for the Discovery Science Technology Centre in Bendigo. Demonstrating a little generator they made out of a spun copper, a magnet and LED, she remembers seeing a woman in the audience, "just her face, it was just contorted in wonder and understanding of, oh, my God, that's how everything happens". Seeing someone have that realisation that electricity does not just come out of the wall but from a plant hundreds of kilometres away was a real buzz she would like to replicate in the new show. But work on it has been sidelined as she works on another project, a podcast series called Australian Highlights where she uncovers stories of innovation that are not commonly known about and interviews the people behind them. "There is moments of innovation just all around us and recognising those moments." One of the standouts from the podcast so far has been "green steel" developed through Prof Veena Sahajwalla's polymer injection technology which transforms waste tyres and plastics into high-quality steel, while another was on how to manage space junk. She plans to record an episode of the podcast at the International Science Festival exploring innovations that Australia takes credit for that perhaps came from New Zealand. "I really do like breaking down silos and causing controversy if I can. Light ones, light controversy." But what would really make her trip is seeing a southern aurora. To see Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer — A Flying Photon , July 1 and 2, 7.30pm, Atomically Correct , July 4, 7.30 and July 5, 3pm, Australian Highlights Live — NZ Edition , July 3, 7.30pm, all at Te Whare o Rukutia. Write your own science poetry , July 2, 2pm, Tūhura Otago Museum — H.D. Skinner Annex.