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CBGB, the New York club that famously served as the home base for NYC's punk scene in the '70s, shut down way back in 2006, but it lives on as a brand activation. Back in 2023, the CBGB Festival came to Brooklyn's Under The K Bridge Park, and its lineup included legendary punk-adjacent types like Iggy Pop, Jack White, the Damned, Johnny Marr, and the current reunited version of the Sex Pistols. This year, the CBGB Festival will return, and it boasts a lineup of legendary punk-adjacent types like Morrissey, Patti Smith, Interpol, and the current reunited version of the Sex Pistols.
This year's CBGB Festival is once again a single-day affair, going down Sep. 26 at Brooklyn's Under The K Bridge Park. Morrissey is set to headline the whole deal despite having a pretty peripheral relationship with first-wave punk rock. (He did publish, what, a New York Dolls fanzine?) It seems like a real gamble to book Morrissey as your headliner, but the LA goth fest Darker Waves did it, too, so maybe people are getting confident. Maybe they're getting more forgiving, too, or forgetting the many reasons that Morrissey might not be a great figurehead for a high-profile event.
In any case, he'll share headlining duties with Patti Smith, who really did play CBGB back in the day, and with Interpol, inheritors of a certain downtown NY mystique. The Sex Pistols famously never made it to New York on their initial run, but the current Johnny Rotten-free incarnation, led by Frank Carter, is now two for two on CBGB Festivals.
Lots of other elder punk types are on the CBGB bill, including Bikini Kill, Agnostic Front, the Buzzcocks, and the Circle Jerks. (The idea of Bikini Kill and Agnostic Front playing a show together would've been hard to fathom in the '90s.) Sleater-Kinney and Fred Armisen's Ramones tribute band the Return Of Jackie And Judy were practically invented for an event like this one, so it's cool that they're on the bill.
The festival has also booked an impressive array of many of today's highest-profile punk and hardcore bands, including Mannequin Pussy, Militarie Gun, High Vis, Haywire, Upchuck, Bad Nerves, and Panic Shack. Violet Grohl is playing, too? In any case, you could probably have a good time at this festival even if you're not into the nostalgia and you think that the idea behind it, with $799 "Punk Royalty" VIP passes, is creatively bankrupt. You can find all the relevant details here.
English (US) · 