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Bikini Kill a rock band performing on the stage.

Bikini Kill

13 March 2023

In the Concert Hall | Contemporary Music

Legendary riot grrrls and feminist icons Bikini Kill return to Australia for their Sydney Opera House debut, bringing their defiant sound and fury to the Concert Hall for one show only.

Bikini Kill returns, its riot grrrl music and message more relevant than ever.

The Seattle Times

Reunited riot grrrl icons make their Sydney Opera House debut

Get ready for revolution girl style, as legendary feminist punk rockers Bikini Kill – lead by riot grrrl icon Kathleen Hanna, alongside original members Tobi Vail and Kathi Wilcox – return to Australia for the first time since the ’90s, marking their Sydney Opera House debut. The band that defined a generation – and influenced countless others – will bring their indefatigable spirit and defiant energy for an unmissable show in the Concert Hall for one night only.

Exploding onto an early-‘90s indie rock scene dominated by male bands, Bikini Kill fused the bratty, visceral energy of punk with the radical politics of feminism, igniting a whole new movement that came to be known as “riot grrrl” – an ethos that continues to reverberate across music, art and culture more than 30 years later. Lead by the irrepressible Kathleen Hanna – who famously wrote the phrase “smells like teen spirit” on Kurt Cobain’s apartment wall – the Olympia, Washington trio’s brief but influential reign yielded such classics as “New Radio”, “Double Dare Ya” and “Rebel Girl”, while Hanna would go on to form the exhilarating electro-punk outfit Le Tigre and become a hero to generations of girls, queers and femmes.

Since reuniting in the US for their first shows in more than two decades, the band has drawn breathless raves from American critics and audiences, their music and message – as relevant as ever in an era where women’s reproductive rights are again under threat – retaining all of its righteous fury and cathartic power.

Sydney Opera House Presents

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