Melbourne post-punk mainstays Sacred Cowboys are back on home soil this November, fresh off a European run behind new album In The Manifesto.
Sacred Cowboys carry four decades of Melbourne noise lightly, and the band returns in November for three rare Victorian shows.
The group first jolted the nation in 1982 with a nihilistic turn on Countdown, and Sacred Cowboys have kept that contrary streak going ever since. Frontman Garry Gray and bassist Mark Ferrie built the outfit out of the city’s early punk and post-punk underground, Gray having cut his teeth in proto-punk mob Negatives and Ferrie in the fledgling Models.
The name came from an episode of 1960s spy caper Get Smart, a wink that summed up a band happy to shrug off genre tags, fashion cycles and industry hype in favour of something rowdier. Their records have surfaced across Europe and Australia in the years since, keeping a loyal following on both sides of the world.
Sacred Cowboys
- 20 November – Church, Geelong
- 22 November – Northcote Social Club, Northcote (afternoon show)
- 27 November – Young Street Tavern, Frankston
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Last year Gray and Ferrie pulled in Tim Deane, Anthony Paine and Damien FitzGerald, and the reshaped line-up cut In The Manifesto, out early in 2026 through Beast Records in France and Torn & Frayed at home. It marks the first full-length from this version of the band, and the results lean into the same restless, blues-flecked punk that made their name.
A European stint followed the release, taking in a ferocious set at the Binic Folks Blues Festival on the coast of Brittany, where the five-piece held the seaside stage with the kind of grit that has long defined them. Now they bring that momentum back to Victoria for a short spell.
Expect the older material and the newer cuts to sit side by side, from the swagger of Cosmic Circus Escapees to deeper pulls across their catalogue. For a band this seasoned, three intimate rooms across Geelong, the inner north and the bayside make for a tidy little homecoming worth catching before they slip off again.
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