Atomic: The Songs Of Blondie makes its Fitzroy Bowls Club debut on Friday 6 November 2026, presenting two full sets celebrating one of the most inventive and enduring bands of the modern era.

Emerging from New York City's legendary CBGB scene in the mid-1970s, Blondie refused to be confined by genre. Drawing equally from punk, pop, disco, reggae, power pop and early hip hop, the band continually reinvented itself while producing a remarkable catalogue of songs that remain as fresh and influential today as when they were first released.

Across two hours, Atomic explores that catalogue in depth. Expect classics including Heart Of Glass, Dreaming, Atomic, Call Me, One Way Or Another, Hanging On The Telephone and Rapture, together with carefully selected album tracks that reveal the breadth, ambition and musicianship that made Blondie one of the defining bands of their generation.

Rather than presenting a costume show or a simple greatest-hits performance, Atomic approaches Blondie's music with authenticity, attention to detail and respect for the original recordings. Every performance is designed to capture the excitement, musicianship and spirit that made Blondie one of popular music's most innovative acts.

Atomic features some of Melbourne's most respected musicians: Anthea Palmer - vocals Stu Thomas - bass and vocals (Dave Graney & The MistLY, Kim Salmon & The Surrealists) Garry Allen - guitar and vocals (Crossbones Boogie, Kahuna Daddies) Mike Dupp - keyboards (The Methinks, The Futurists) Victor Stranges - drums and vocals (The Methinks, The Futurists)

Collectively, the band brings decades of recording and live performance experience to a show created by musicians who simply love the music they are playing.

Collector Ticket Offers Bring your friends and take advantage of our exclusive collector ticket bundles, available only through TryBooking. Buy 5 tickets and, for just $4 extra, receive your choice of Blondie's 180g vinyl edition of Parallel Lines or Eat To The Beat. Buy 10 tickets and, for just $5 extra, receive both classic albums on 180g vinyl.

All vinyl is collected at the venue on the night of the performance. Quantities are strictly limited and available while stocks last.

Whether you first heard Blondie in the late 1970s, discovered them through the new wave explosion of the 1980s, or continue to return to their records today, Atomic offers an evening celebrating one of popular music's truly original bands.

A night for longtime devotees, record collectors, New York romantics and anyone still drawn to the collision of punk attitude, pop intelligence and rock 'n' roll electricity that made Blondie endure.

POP PRESERVATION SOCIETY’S SONGWRITER SERIES PRESENTS "LAST OF THE ANGRY YOUNG MEN" Victor Stranges (Solo) with Special Guest Garry Allen

Britain had its Angry Young Men in the 1950s. Twenty years later, another generation picked up guitars. Their arguments generally lasted about three minutes and, fortunately, came with a chorus.

Last Of The Angry Young Men is an intimate evening exploring the craft, words and songs of Britain’s punk, post-punk, pub rock and power pop years of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Victor Stranges performs songs by Elvis Costello, Paul Weller, Joe Strummer, Joe Jackson, Billy Bragg, Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, Squeeze, Buzzcocks and others: songwriters who turned politics, class, relationships, suburbia, frustration, humour and everyday life into some remarkably enduring songs.

For Victor, this repertoire is personal.

When he began writing songs in Melbourne in the mid 1980s, while playing drums in punk band Drunk ’n’ Disorderly on the local circuit, these were among the writers who provided the blueprint. Their records became part of his education in songwriting and helped shape a musical path that has continued through bands, records, solo work and more than four decades of making music. Now he’s going back to where much of it started.

Expect stripped back performances, stories from Victor’s own career, the stories behind some of the songs and records, and a little useful information about the people who wrote them. There may also be the occasional opinion accumulated over 40 years.

This isn’t a lecture. It’s Saturday night.

Special guest Garry Allen opens the evening with his own set before joining Victor later in the night, with a few other guests likely to appear along the way.

Make a night of it. Dinner. Drinks. Friends. And some very good songs.

Doors 6.30pm | Show 7.00pm 18+ Tickets: $35 + booking fee presale | $40 + booking fee at the door Presented by Pop Preservation Society.

BLACK MARKET CLASH + MORE SPECIALS

England, late seventies. Punk and ska begin to overlap. Jamaican ska and reggae collide with the urgency of punk, and by 1978 and 1979 The Clash and The Specials are moving through the same musical and cultural landscape. Different bands, different sounds, but sharing the same sense that music could say something about the world outside the venue as well as move the people inside it. On Friday 11 December, that connection returns to the stage when Black Market Clash and More Specials bring The Story Of The Clash & The Specials to Sooki Lounge.

Black Market Clash play The Story Of The Clash, going beyond a greatest-hits set and deep into the catalogue. London Calling, Should I Stay Or Should I Go, Rock The Casbah and I Fought The Law sit alongside Straight To Hell, Safe European Home, Janie Jones, Police & Thieves, The Guns Of Brixton and (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais.

For this show, Black Market Clash also bring a three-piece horn section onto the stage, opening up another part of The Clash catalogue. We’ve looked, and we haven’t found another dedicated Clash tribute anywhere in the world currently performing this music with its own horn section. We don’t think even The Clash themselves ever took a complete brass section onstage to reproduce the arrangements heard on songs such as Rudie Can’t Fail and Revolution Rock.

The horns are only part of the night. Rest assured, there will still be a lot of punk rock.

More Specials takes on one of the great catalogues of Britain’s Two Tone movement. Created by members of Loonee Tunes, Australia’s longest-running regularly performing ska band, the musicians behind More Specials have lived and breathed ska for more than forty years.

A Message To You, Rudy, Gangsters, Too Much Too Young, Concrete Jungle, Rat Race, Ghost Town, Do Nothing, Nite Klub, Stereotype and more. More Specials combines the songs everyone knows with deeper album tracks, driven by tight rhythms, horns and that unmistakable Specials ska pulse.

Through Loonee Tunes, these musicians have shared stages with Bad Manners and From The Jam, played major festivals and venues around Australia, and built more than four decades of experience performing ska live.

And this double header isn’t a regular thing.

The last time Black Market Clash and More Specials brought The Story Of The Clash & The Specials together, at Brunswick Ballroom in June, the show sold out.

Now they bring it to Sooki Lounge for one Friday night in Belgrave.

Two bands. The music of The Clash and The Specials. Punk, ska, reggae, horns and a packed catalogue of songs.

Don’t miss it.

📽 Watch Video: https://youtu.be/pi7QdGSvYLI