The Skids in 1980 | Photo by Maloney/Mirrorpix/Getty Images

Scottish Punk Band Skids Announce Debut Australian Tour, Celebrating Their 45th Anniversary in 2024

September 5, 2023

Scottish punks The Skids have announced their debut Australian tour in celebration of their 45th anniversary. The band will circle the country in May 2024, kicking things off at Brisbane’s The Triffid on Thursday, 2nd May, with dates in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth to follow.

Often regarded as the ‘forgotten heroes’ of Scottish punk, the tour will see the band play a greatest hits set of tracks from their long and varied career, including best-known cuts like ‘Into The Valley’ and ‘Working For The Yankee Dollar’.

The Skids: ‘Into The Valley’

The Skids were founded by songwriter Richard Jobson, guitarist Stuart Adamson, bassist William Simpson, and drummer Thomas Kellichan in the late ’70s. Despite flying under the radar now, there were a commercially successful band: their 1980 album The Absolute Game landed in the top ten, and they had a string of top 20 singles including ‘Into The Valley’.

The Skids disbanded in 1982, and Jobson went on to play in bands like Big Country and The Armoury Show. In 2001, Adamson – who alongside Jobson was the heart of the band – died by suicide. Some remaining members of the band reunited a few years later to pay tribute to Adamson and to celebrate their 30th anniversary.

In the last few years the band – with Jobson the only founding member remaining – have released a handful of albums, the most recent being 2022’s Destination Düsseldorf.