ABC, the Sheffield band fronted by Martin Fry since 1980, return to Australia in March 2027 and play New Zealand for the first time. The run opens at The Civic in Auckland on Thursday 4 March 2027 and closes at The Gov in Adelaide on Thursday 18 March, taking in eight theatre shows across two countries in a little over two weeks.
The concerts are built around The Lexicon of Love, the 1982 debut album produced by Trevor Horn that went to number one in Britain and number 9 on the Australian albums chart. Fry plays the record's big singles, from “Poison Arrow” and “The Look of Love” to “All of My Heart” and “Tears Are Not Enough”, alongside later hits such as “When Smokey Sings” and “Be Near Me”. Promoters in Australia bill the run as The Lexicon of Life Tour 2027.
This page sets out the confirmed dates and venues, how the route fits together, a guide to each theatre, and what the archive records of ABC's earlier Australian visits, most recently three pub and club shows around Melbourne in October 2011. It is the band's first full Australian tour in more than a decade.
New Zealand comes first. ABC open at The Civic, Auckland's grand atmospheric theatre on Queen Street, on Thursday 4 March 2027, and play the St James Theatre on Courtenay Place in Wellington on Sunday 7 March. In between, on Saturday 6 March, the band are booked for a festival set at Selwyn Sounds near Christchurch. New Zealand coverage of the announcement described these as the first ABC concerts ever staged in the country, some 45 years after The Lexicon of Love was released.
The Australian leg starts on the west coast. ABC play the Astor Theatre in Mount Lawley, Perth, on Tuesday 9 March, then cross to Melbourne for the Palais Theatre in St Kilda on Thursday 11 March. Brisbane's Fortitude Music Hall follows on Saturday 13 March and Sydney's Enmore Theatre on Sunday 14 March, so the east coast is covered on a single weekend.
Two smaller cities finish the run. Hobart gets a date at the Odeon Theatre on Liverpool Street on Tuesday 16 March, which is not a given for a visiting British act, and the tour ends at The Gov, the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel in Adelaide, on Thursday 18 March 2027. The Gov is the most intimate room of the eight.
All the shows are single nights in seated or mixed theatres of roughly 1,000 to 3,000 capacity, which suits a catalogue built on strings, saxophone and Fry's crooning. No support act had been announced as of 9 October 2026.
The Civic opened on 20 December 1929 on Queen Street, Auckland, and seats about 2,378, making it the largest theatre in New Zealand. A Category 1 historic place, it is the largest surviving atmospheric cinema in Australasia, with a starry-sky ceiling.
The St James Theatre on Courtenay Place opened in 1912 and was designed by Henry Eli White as one of the first theatres built entirely with a steel frame and reinforced concrete. A Category 1 historic place with about 1,550 seats, it was saved from demolition in the 1990s and reopened in 2022 after earthquake strengthening.
The Astor Theatre on Beaufort Street in Mount Lawley opened in 1914 as the Lyceum Theatre and was rebuilt in Art Deco style in 1939. Listed on the State Register of Heritage Places, it reopened in 2009 as a venue for live music and comedy.
The Palais Theatre on the Lower Esplanade in St Kilda opened in 1927, designed by Henry Eli White, and seats about 2,896, making it the largest seated theatre in Australia. Listed on the Victorian Heritage Register, it has hosted acts from the Rolling Stones to the Bolshoi ballet.
The Fortitude Music Hall opened in July 2019 on the Brunswick Street Mall in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. It holds about 3,000 people standing and was built to fill the gap for a mid-sized concert hall in the city.
The Enmore Theatre on Enmore Road in Newtown, in Sydney's inner west, opened in 1912 and was remodelled in Art Deco style in 1937. It holds about 1,700 seated or 2,500 standing and is the longest-running live theatre in Sydney.
The Odeon Theatre at 167 Liverpool Street opened in 1916 as The Strand, modelled on the Strand in New York, and holds about 1,690 people. It housed a Wurlitzer organ from 1918 and was the home of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra from 1973 to 2001.
The Gov is the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel on Port Road in Hindmarsh, a pub dating from 1848 that was turned into a major live music venue in 1993. It won national best live music venue honours in 2017 and has been inducted into the SA Music Hall of Fame.
Thursday 4 March 2027 — The Civic, Auckland. This is the opening night of the run.
Sunday 7 March 2027 — St James Theatre, Wellington.
Tuesday 9 March 2027 — Astor Theatre, Perth.
Thursday 11 March 2027 — Palais Theatre, Melbourne. Their most recent documented Melbourne show was at The Commercial Hotel on 29 October 2011.
Saturday 13 March 2027 — The Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane.
Sunday 14 March 2027 — Enmore Theatre, Sydney.
Tuesday 16 March 2027 — Odeon Theatre, Hobart.
Thursday 18 March 2027 — The Gov, Adelaide. This venue closes the tour.
ABC's commercial peak in Australia came early. The Lexicon of Love reached number 9 on the Australian albums chart and was certified gold here, while it went platinum in New Zealand. Beauty Stab (1983) reached number 58 and Alphabet City (1987) number 45, which tells you that the band's Australian audience has always been centred on the debut and its singles.
Live, the documented record is thin. The setlist.fm archive and Wikipedia do not list an Australian or New Zealand tour by the classic line-up of Fry, Mark White, Stephen Singleton and David Palmer, and this page does not guess at visits that are not recorded. What is documented is a short run in October 2011, when ABC played three nights in and around Melbourne.
Those shows took place on Thursday 27 October 2011 at the Shoppingtown Hotel, on Friday 28 October at the Chelsea Heights Hotel and on Saturday 29 October at The Commercial Hotel. They were suburban pub rooms rather than theatres, and Wikipedia's history of the band notes the Melbourne dates of that month as part of a year that also took in British shows and Las Vegas.
The three 2011 set lists were identical: fourteen songs, opening with “The Very First Time” from the 2008 album Traffic, then “Show Me”, “Poison Arrow”, “(How to Be a) Millionaire” and “That Was Then but This Is Now”. The middle of the set mixed “Love Is Strong”, “The Night You Murdered Love”, “4 Ever 2 Gether”, “Be Near Me” and “All of My Heart”, before “Tears Are Not Enough”, “When Smokey Sings” and “The Look of Love (Part One)”. “Poison Arrow” came back as the encore each night.
The 2027 tour is therefore a step up in scale: from three suburban Melbourne hotels to the Palais Theatre, the largest seated theatre in Australia, plus five other Australian cities and the band's first New Zealand concerts. Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney have no ABC show in the documented archive at all, and nor do Auckland and Wellington.
The table below lists 3 documented Australia/NZ concerts by ABC between 2011 and 2011, with the most shows in Melbourne (3). It is not exhaustive: it only includes documented shows.
| Date | City | Venue | Tour / event |
|---|---|---|---|
| 29 October 2011 | Melbourne | The Commercial Hotel | |
| 28 October 2011 | Melbourne | Chelsea Heights Hotel | |
| 27 October 2011 | Melbourne | Shoppingtown Hotel |
Concert data: setlist.fm
Across the 3 most recent documented Australia/NZ concerts with a full song list (27 October 2011 to 29 October 2011), these are the songs that came up most often. Titles only — set lists change from night to night.
The archive does not record ABC at an Australian or New Zealand festival such as Bluesfest or the old summer touring festivals; their documented local history is the October 2011 Melbourne run.
The 2027 visit includes one outdoor set, at Selwyn Sounds near Christchurch on Saturday 6 March 2027, between the Auckland and Wellington theatre shows. All the Australian dates are ABC's own headline concerts.
ABC grew out of Vice Versa, a Sheffield electronic group formed in 1977 by Stephen Singleton and Mark White. Martin Fry, who ran a fanzine called Modern Drugs, interviewed them, was asked to join, and by late 1980 had become the singer of the renamed band. Their first single, “Tears Are Not Enough”, reached the UK top 20 in 1981.
The Lexicon of Love, released in June 1982 and produced by Trevor Horn with orchestral arrangements by Anne Dudley, went to number one in Britain and produced three top 10 singles in “Poison Arrow”, “The Look of Love” and “All of My Heart”. Fry's gold lamé suit, inspired by Billy Fury, became the image of the new pop era, and the band were part of the Second British Invasion of the US charts.
Beauty Stab (1983) was a deliberate turn to guitars and sold less well. How to Be a ... Zillionaire! (1985) gave ABC their first US top 10 hit with “Be Near Me”, and after Fry was treated for Hodgkin lymphoma, he and White returned as a duo with Alphabet City (1987), whose tribute to Smokey Robinson, “When Smokey Sings”, became their biggest American hit. Up (1989) and Abracadabra (1991) followed before White left in 1992.
Fry has led ABC ever since, with Skyscraping (1997), Traffic (2008) and The Lexicon of Love II (2016), which reached the UK top 5. He has performed the debut with orchestras at the Royal Albert Hall in 2009 and at Sheffield City Hall for its 40th anniversary in 2022, released as a live album in 2023, and toured North America with Howard Jones in 2024 and 2025.
| Album | Year | AUS chart peak |
|---|---|---|
| The Lexicon of Love | 1982 | AUS 9 |
| Beauty Stab | 1983 | AUS 58 |
| How to Be a ... Zillionaire! | 1985 | — |
| Alphabet City | 1987 | AUS 45 |
| Up | 1989 | — |
| Abracadabra | 1991 | — |
| Skyscraping | 1997 | — |
| Traffic | 2008 | — |
| The Lexicon of Love II | 2016 | — |
For New Zealand fans this is a first. The Lexicon of Love went platinum in New Zealand in the early 1980s, yet ABC had never played there; the 2027 dates at The Civic in Auckland (Thursday 4 March) and the St James Theatre in Wellington (Sunday 7 March) change that.
Both are historic theatres. The Civic, opened in 1929, is the largest theatre in the country, with its famous starry ceiling, and the St James, opened in 1912 and designed by Henry Eli White, reopened in 2022 after earthquake strengthening. Between them sits the Selwyn Sounds festival set near Christchurch on Saturday 6 March, which gives the South Island its only ABC date.
Melbourne is the only Australian city where ABC's previous visit is documented, and it gets the largest room of the 2027 tour. The Palais Theatre on the Lower Esplanade in St Kilda opened in 1927 and seats close to 2,900, making it the largest seated theatre in the country.
The contrast with 2011 is striking: then, Fry played three suburban hotel rooms over three consecutive nights in late October; now he has one Thursday night, 11 March 2027, in a heritage-listed hall that has hosted the Rolling Stones and the Bolshoi. Melburnians who missed the pub shows have one chance this time.
The last two dates go to cities many British heritage acts skip. The Odeon Theatre in Hobart, opened in 1916 as The Strand and home of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra for almost thirty years, hosts ABC on Tuesday 16 March 2027.
Two nights later the run ends at The Gov in Hindmarsh, one of Adelaide's best-known live music pubs and a national award winner as best live music venue. After grand theatres in every other city, the final night of the tour is the closest the band gets to the scale of the 2011 Melbourne rooms.
Brisbane and Sydney are back to back: The Fortitude Music Hall in Fortitude Valley on Saturday 13 March and the Enmore Theatre in Newtown on Sunday 14 March 2027. The Fortitude Music Hall opened in 2019, and the Enmore, from 1912, is Sydney's longest-running live theatre.
Neither city has an ABC concert in the documented archive, so for many fans in Queensland and New South Wales this weekend is the first chance to hear The Lexicon of Love songs played live by Fry and his band.
An ABC concert today is a greatest-hits show in which Martin Fry is the constant, fronting a band that can reproduce the lush arrangements of the early records. On the 2024 and 2025 North American dates with Howard Jones, the ABC half of the evening drew mostly on The Lexicon of Love as well as “That Was Then but This Is Now”, “Viva Love” and “King Without a Crown”.
The last documented Australian set lists, from Melbourne in October 2011, ran to fourteen songs and finished with “Poison Arrow” as an encore, after “When Smokey Sings” and “The Look of Love (Part One)”. For 2027 the promoters describe songs from The Lexicon of Love plus a set of hits from across the band's career, so expect the debut's singles at the heart of the night; the exact running order has not been published.
Tickets for the Australian dates went on general sale on Friday 7 August 2026, after an early-bird presale that opened on Wednesday 5 August. The New Zealand shows are also on sale. Buy through the official ticketing outlets listed by each venue or at the venue box offices, and check the city and date on your ticket, since the run moves quickly from one city to the next.
There is no public ABC presale code to buy or share, and the presale period has already closed. Codes or “guaranteed” seats offered on social media are not genuine. If a show sells out, use only the official resale service of the original seller; many Australian and New Zealand theatres now issue name-locked mobile tickets that cannot simply be passed on.
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When does ABC's 2027 tour of Australia and New Zealand start?
At The Civic in Auckland on Thursday 4 March 2027. The first Australian show is at the Astor Theatre in Perth on Tuesday 9 March.
Which New Zealand cities are included?
Auckland (The Civic, 4 March) and Wellington (St James Theatre, 7 March), plus a festival set at Selwyn Sounds near Christchurch on 6 March. They are ABC's first concerts in New Zealand.
When is ABC playing Sydney?
On Sunday 14 March 2027 at the Enmore Theatre in Newtown, the night after Brisbane's Fortitude Music Hall.
Where does ABC play in Melbourne?
At the Palais Theatre in St Kilda on Thursday 11 March 2027.
Is there a Hobart show?
Yes: the Odeon Theatre in Hobart on Tuesday 16 March 2027.
Where does the tour end?
At The Gov in Adelaide on Thursday 18 March 2027.
When did ABC last play in Australia?
The archive records three Melbourne shows in October 2011, at the Shoppingtown Hotel, the Chelsea Heights Hotel and The Commercial Hotel. The 2027 run is described as their first full Australian tour in more than a decade.
Is Martin Fry still the singer?
Yes. Fry has fronted ABC since 1980 and is the band's only constant member.
Will they play The Lexicon of Love?
The tour is built around songs from The Lexicon of Love alongside hits from the rest of the band's career; the full running order has not been published.
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