Modern English | Credit: Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images

Buzzcocks Announce Modern English As Support For 2024 Australian Tour

April 9, 2024

Buzzcocks have expanded the line-up of their upcoming 2024 tour of Australia, adding Essex new-wave band Modern English as main support for all dates. This will mark the first time the veteran band have ever performed in Australia in their 45-year career. Modern English have been opening for the UK punk band across their Buzzcocks Are Coming world tour thus far, with this now expanding into Buzzcocks’ return down under later this year. This will also extend to their New Zealand dates.

Modern English are best known for their hit single ‘I Melt With You’. Originally released in 1982 as the second single from their second album After the Snow, the song went on to become one of the most recognisable and popular songs of the new-wave era. It was most famously used in the 1983 film Valley Girl, starring a young Nicholas Cage in one of his earliest film roles.

Modern English – ‘I Melt With You’

Both bands, despite being mostly associated with their classic material, will be touring Australia in support of new material. Buzzcocks released their 10th studio album, Sonics in the Soul, in 2022. Modern English, meanwhile, released their ninth studio album 1 2 3 4 weeks ago in February 2024.

The tour will mark the first time the Buzzcocks have played shows in the country since the passing of founding member and frontman Pete Shelley, who died in December 2018 at the age of 63. The band’s surviving members – rhythm guitarist Steve Diggle, bassist Chris Remington and drummer Danny Farrant – recruited lead guitarist Mani Perazzoli, with Diggle stepping up as the Buzzcocks’ new lead vocalist.