Squeeze return to Australia and New Zealand in April 2027 for seven concerts in nine days. The tour opens at The Powerstation in Auckland on Tuesday 13 April 2027, plays Meow Nui in Wellington the next night, then crosses to Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide before ending at the Astor Theatre in Perth on Thursday 22 April.
It is their first documented visit since April and May 2018, when Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook brought the band to The Tivoli in Brisbane, the Metro Theatre in Sydney, the Forum in Melbourne, the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel in Adelaide and the Astor Theatre in Perth. For New Zealand the gap is far longer: the only documented shows there are at the town halls of Auckland and Wellington in February 1980.
The tour follows Trixies, released in March 2026, an album of songs Difford and Tilbrook wrote more than fifty years ago and had never recorded. Tickets have been on sale since Friday 31 July 2026. Here are the dates, the venues, the band's long history in the region and what to expect on the night.
Squeeze Australia & NZ 2027 begins in New Zealand. The Powerstation on Mount Eden Road in Auckland hosts the first concert on Tuesday 13 April 2027, and Meow Nui in central Wellington follows on Wednesday 14 April. These are the band's first documented New Zealand dates in 47 years.
After a day's travel the Australian section opens at The Fortitude Music Hall in Brisbane on Friday 16 April. Sydney follows at the Enmore Theatre on Saturday 17 April, the only Saturday of the tour, and Melbourne at the Palais Theatre in St Kilda on Monday 19 April.
The last two dates repeat the end of the 2018 tour. Squeeze play The Gov in Hindmarsh, Adelaide, on Tuesday 20 April and the Astor Theatre in Mount Lawley, Perth, on Thursday 22 April, the same two rooms where they finished their Australian run on 30 April and 1 May 2018.
Every city gets a single night. No support act and no additional dates had been announced as of 9 October 2026.
The Powerstation is a live music venue at 33 Mount Eden Road in Eden Terrace, Auckland, holding about 1,000 people. In 1986 the building housed The Asylum, described as the first house music club in Australasia.
Meow Nui is a live music venue in central Wellington, New Zealand's capital. It hosts touring and local acts, mostly in a standing-room format.
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 Palais Theatre on the St Kilda foreshore opened on 12 November 1927 as a picture palace designed by Henry Eli White. With close to 3,000 seats it is the largest seated theatre in Australia; it is on the Victorian Heritage Register and reopened in 2017 after a state-funded restoration.
The Gov is the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, a pub in the inner suburb of Hindmarsh, about 3.5 km north-west of Adelaide's city centre, that dates from 1848. Known as the city's home of live music, it won national and state awards for best live music venue in 2017 and is in the SA Music Hall of Fame.
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.
Tuesday 13 April 2027 — The Powerstation, Auckland. In Auckland, the last documented Squeeze concert was at Auckland Town Hall (5 February 1980). This is the opening night of the run.
Wednesday 14 April 2027 — Meow Nui, Wellington. Their most recent documented Wellington show was at Wellington Town Hall on 7 February 1980.
Friday 16 April 2027 — The Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane. In Brisbane, the last documented Squeeze concert was at The Tivoli (26 April 2018).
Saturday 17 April 2027 — Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Their most recent documented Sydney show was at Metro Theatre on 27 April 2018.
Monday 19 April 2027 — Palais Theatre, Melbourne. Their most recent documented Melbourne show was at Forum Theatre on 28 April 2018.
Tuesday 20 April 2027 — The Gov, Adelaide. In Adelaide, the last documented Squeeze concert was at The Governor Hindmarsh Hotel (30 April 2018).
Thursday 22 April 2027 — Astor Theatre, Perth. Squeeze last played Astor Theatre on 1 May 2018. This venue closes the tour.
Squeeze's first Australian tour, in January and February 1980, took them through pubs, clubs and halls across the country. Over five weeks the setlist.fm archive lists more than twenty shows, from the Sundowner Hotel in Sydney on 5 January to the Bondi Lifesaver on 3 February. At the time their records were released in Australia under the name UK Squeeze, because a Sydney band called Squeeze already existed.
The 1980 route went well beyond the capitals. In Victoria the band played the Doncaster Inn, Bombay Rock, the Sundowner Hotel, the Council Club Hotel and the Crystal Ballroom in Melbourne, the Capitol Theatre in Warrnambool and the Eureka Hotel in Geelong. They played Broken Hill on 18 January, the Old Mariner Hotel in Adelaide and the Westlands Hotel in Whyalla, then Brisbane Festival Hall on 25 January, two nights at the Jet Club on the Gold Coast and Festival Hall in Melbourne on 28 January.
Sydney saw them most often. Besides the Sundowner and the Bondi Lifesaver, which they played twice, the archive lists the Stagedoor Tavern, The Family Inn, the Fairfield Hotel, the Comb and Cutter Hotel, the Sylvania Hotel, Ocean Beach and the Manly Vale Hotel, plus the Palais Royale in Newcastle on 9 January. The tour then crossed the Tasman for Auckland Town Hall on 5 February and Wellington Town Hall on 7 February 1980.
After that the record is thin for decades. The archive lists Newcastle City Hall on 28 September 1993 and the Corner Hotel in Melbourne on 10 April 1996. The band toured Australia again in the 2016-2018 period, and the documented 2018 run began at The Tivoli in Brisbane on Thursday 26 April, followed by the Metro Theatre in Sydney, the Forum Theatre in Melbourne, the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel in Adelaide and the Astor Theatre in Perth on Tuesday 1 May 2018.
The table below gathers the shows documented on setlist.fm. Most of the 1980 entries have no setlist, but the dates and venues give a rare picture of how a British band on the rise toured Australia at the end of the 1970s.
The table below lists 34 documented Australia/NZ concerts by Squeeze between 1980 and 2018, with the most shows in Sydney (11), Melbourne (8), Adelaide (2), Brisbane (2), Newcastle (2), Gold Coast (2). It is not exhaustive: it only includes documented shows.
| Date | City | Venue | Tour / event |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 May 2018 | Perth | Astor Theatre | |
| 30 April 2018 | Adelaide | The Governor Hindmarsh Hotel | |
| 28 April 2018 | Melbourne | Forum Theatre | |
| 27 April 2018 | Sydney | Metro Theatre | |
| 26 April 2018 | Brisbane | The Tivoli | |
| 10 April 1996 | Melbourne | Corner Hotel | |
| 28 September 1993 | Newcastle | Newcastle City Hall | |
| 7 February 1980 | Wellington | Wellington Town Hall | |
| 5 February 1980 | Auckland | Auckland Town Hall | |
| 3 February 1980 | Sydney | Bondi Lifesaver | |
| 2 February 1980 | Sydney | Manly Vale Hotel | |
| 1 February 1980 | Sydney | Ocean Beach | |
| 31 January 1980 | Sydney | Sylvania Hotel | |
| 30 January 1980 | Sydney | Comb and Cutter Hotel | |
| 28 January 1980 | Melbourne | Festival Hall | |
| 27 January 1980 | Gold Coast | Jet Club | |
| 26 January 1980 | Gold Coast | Jet Club | |
| 25 January 1980 | Brisbane | Brisbane Festival Hall | |
| 24 January 1980 | Sydney | Bondi Lifesaver | |
| 23 January 1980 | Sydney | Fairfield Hotel | |
| 22 January 1980 | Sydney | The Family Inn | |
| 20 January 1980 | Whyalla | Westlands Hotel | |
| 19 January 1980 | Adelaide | Old Mariner Hotel | |
| 18 January 1980 | Broken Hill | ||
| 17 January 1980 | Melbourne | Crystal Ballroom | |
| 16 January 1980 | Melbourne | Council Club Hotel | |
| 15 January 1980 | Geelong | Eureka Hotel | Cool for Cats |
| 13 January 1980 | Warrnambool | Capitol Theatre | |
| 12 January 1980 | Melbourne | Sundowner Hotel | |
| 11 January 1980 | Melbourne | Bombay Rock | |
| 10 January 1980 | Melbourne | Doncaster Inn | |
| 9 January 1980 | Newcastle | Palais Royale | |
| 8 January 1980 | Sydney | Stagedoor Tavern | |
| 5 January 1980 | Sydney | Sundowner Hotel |
Concert data: setlist.fm
Across the 4 most recent documented Australia/NZ concerts with a full song list (26 April 2018 to 30 April 2018), these are the songs that came up most often. Titles only — set lists change from night to night.
Squeeze formed in Deptford, south-east London, in 1974 around Chris Difford, who writes the lyrics, and Glenn Tilbrook, who writes the music; they are the band's only constant members among more than thirty musicians. Jools Holland was the first keyboard player. The band took its name from a Velvet Underground album, and its early records were produced in part by John Cale.
Cool for Cats (1979) gave them two UK No. 2 singles, "Cool for Cats" and "Up the Junction", and reached No. 18 in Australia. Argybargy (1980) brought "Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)" and "Another Nail in My Heart", and East Side Story (1981), produced by Elvis Costello and Roger Bechirian, added "Tempted", sung by Paul Carrack, and "Labelled with Love". After Sweets from a Stranger and "Black Coffee in Bed", the band split in 1982.
Difford and Tilbrook released an album as a duo in 1984, then re-formed Squeeze in 1985. Babylon and On (1987) gave them their only US top 40 hits, "Hourglass" and "853-5937". Line-ups changed constantly through Frank, Play, Some Fantastic Place, Ridiculous and Domino, and the band broke up again in 1999.
Squeeze reunited in 2007. Spot the Difference (2010) re-recorded their hits, Cradle to the Grave (2015) was their first album of new songs since 1998 and their highest-charting album of original material in the UK, and The Knowledge followed in 2017. Trixies, released in March 2026, reached No. 15 in the UK, and in May 2026 the band played the first episode of the new series of Later... with Jools Holland, where Holland joined them for "Take Me I'm Yours".
| Album | Year | AUS chart peak |
|---|---|---|
| Squeeze | 1978 | — |
| Cool for Cats | 1979 | AUS 18 |
| Argybargy | 1980 | — |
| East Side Story | 1981 | — |
| Sweets from a Stranger | 1982 | — |
| Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti | 1985 | AUS 97 |
| Babylon and On | 1987 | AUS 84 |
| Frank | 1989 | — |
| Play | 1991 | — |
| Some Fantastic Place | 1993 | — |
| Ridiculous | 1995 | — |
| Domino | 1998 | — |
| Spot the Difference | 2010 | — |
| Cradle to the Grave | 2015 | — |
| The Knowledge | 2017 | — |
| Trixies | 2026 | — |
The documented New Zealand history of Squeeze consists of two nights at the end of their first Australasian tour: Auckland Town Hall on 5 February 1980 and Wellington Town Hall on 7 February 1980. Nothing later is documented in either city.
The 2027 tour reverses the order of that trip and starts in New Zealand. The Powerstation in Auckland, a standing venue of about 1,000 on Mount Eden Road, hosts the opening night on Tuesday 13 April, and Meow Nui in Wellington follows on Wednesday 14 April.
Both are much smaller than the town halls of 1980, which makes them some of the most intimate rooms the band will play anywhere on this run. Christchurch and other South Island cities are not on the route.
Australian fans who bought the early records will remember the name UK Squeeze on the sleeves. When the London band's first album came out, a Sydney band called Squeeze already had a record, The Squeeze Is On, released in 1978. To avoid confusion, the English band's albums were credited to UK Squeeze in Australia up to and including Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti in 1985.
The same name was used in North America for the debut album, because of an American band called Tight Squeeze, but the UK prefix was dropped there much sooner. The 1980 Australian tour took place under that name; Cool for Cats, released in 1979, reached No. 18 on the Australian albums chart.
Today the band tour simply as Squeeze, and the 2027 dates are billed that way.
Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne each get one night, and all three venues are new to the band's documented history. The Fortitude Music Hall in Fortitude Valley, open since 2019, hosts them on Friday 16 April 2027; in 2018 they played The Tivoli nearby.
In Sydney they move from the Metro Theatre on George Street, where they played on 27 April 2018, to the larger Enmore Theatre in Newtown on Saturday 17 April. In Melbourne they move from the Forum to the Palais Theatre in St Kilda, which seats close to 3,000, on Monday 19 April.
Those three nights fall between a Friday and a Monday, a weekend that makes it easier for fans in regional Queensland and New South Wales to travel. No regional dates have been announced.
Adelaide and Perth repeat the 2018 itinerary exactly. On 30 April 2018 Squeeze played the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, and on 1 May 2018 the Astor Theatre in Mount Lawley. In 2027 they play The Gov on Tuesday 20 April and the Astor on Thursday 22 April.
The Adelaide connection goes back further. In January 1980 the band played the Old Mariner Hotel in Adelaide and the Westlands Hotel in Whyalla, and on the same run Broken Hill, near the South Australian border.
The Astor, a restored 1939 Art Deco theatre, closes the tour, as it did eight years earlier.
The 2018 Australian shows ran to 23 songs and kept the same order every night. They opened with "Please Be Upstanding" and "Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)", included newer songs such as "Cradle to the Grave" and "Innocence in Paradise" from the two most recent albums, and built towards a closing run of "Take Me I'm Yours", "Tempted", "Wicked and Cruel", "Goodbye Girl", "Up the Junction", "Slap & Tickle", "Cool for Cats", "Is That Love" and "Black Coffee in Bed".
Other hits in those sets included "Hourglass", "Annie Get Your Gun", "Labelled With Love" and "Another Nail in My Heart".
The 2027 set list has not been published. Trixies, released in March 2026, gives the band a new body of songs to draw on, while the hits that closed every 2018 show in Australia are the songs most associated with the band.
Tickets for all seven Australian and New Zealand concerts went on general sale on Friday 31 July 2026 and are available through the official ticketing agents for each venue and the venues' own box offices, subject to availability. No presale details for this tour were published in the data we track.
Several venues on this tour, The Powerstation, Meow Nui and The Gov in particular, are small, so single nights can sell out. Buy through the official outlets linked from the venue pages, and check whether your mobile ticket is tied to the buyer's name before buying for someone else.
There is no public Squeeze presale code to buy or share. Avoid "guaranteed" tickets offered on social media, and sign up below for the alert to hear about returns, added dates or any change to the tour.
When does Squeeze's 2027 tour start?
At The Powerstation in Auckland on Tuesday 13 April 2027.
Is there a Wellington show?
Yes, at Meow Nui on Wednesday 14 April 2027.
When is the Sydney concert?
Saturday 17 April 2027 at the Enmore Theatre in Newtown.
Where do Squeeze play in Melbourne?
At the Palais Theatre in St Kilda on Monday 19 April 2027.
When were Squeeze last in Australia?
In April and May 2018, at The Tivoli in Brisbane, the Metro Theatre in Sydney, the Forum in Melbourne, the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel in Adelaide and the Astor Theatre in Perth.
When did Squeeze last play New Zealand?
The last documented shows are Auckland Town Hall on 5 February 1980 and Wellington Town Hall on 7 February 1980.
Where does the tour end?
At the Astor Theatre in Perth on Thursday 22 April 2027.
When did tickets go on sale?
On Friday 31 July 2026.
Why were Squeeze called UK Squeeze in Australia?
A Sydney band called Squeeze already existed, so the English band's records were credited to UK Squeeze in Australia up to 1985.
Leave your email and we’ll alert you the moment Australian tickets and pre-sales go live.