Dangling an enticing carrot of summer heat during these grey winter days, UK post-punk superstars bar italia have announced a two date tour of Aotearoa New Zealand, toasting their just-announced new album Some Like It Hot. London’s ever-rising trio of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton‘s (Double Virgo) inaugural visit to NZ last June generated gushing chatter as one of the best gigs of 2024, and with their fifth studio record (in five years!) dropping this October via Matador in advance of December’s headline shows at Tāmaki Makaurau’s Hollywood Avondale and Pōneke’s Meow, these events threaten to be borderline historic. Smash play on brand new single and video ‘Fundraiser’ starring actor Matt King and prepare to pounce on tickets when they go live — brought to you by Banished Music and Strange News…
bar italia – Some Like It Hot NZ Tour
Saturday 13th December – Hollywood Avondale, Auckland (all-ages)
Sunday 14th December – Meow, Wellington
Banished Music presale from 11am, Friday 22nd August – subscribe for presales HERE
General on sale from 11am, Monday 25th August
Tickets from Banished Music
Here’s bar italia’s 2025 anthem ‘Cowbella’…
Press release:
Hot on the heels of announcing their highly anticipated new album Some Like It Hot, the eternally enigmatic UK post-punk darlings bar italia have also unveiled two huge New Zealand shows for this December, brought to you by Strange News Touring and Banished Music. Saturday 13th of December, the band will take the stage at Auckland’s glorious Hollywood Avondale for an all-ages show, playing Meow in Wellington on Sunday 14th December.
After bursting onto the scene with two incredible albums in a single year – the brilliant Tracey Denim and the noisy niceness of The Twits – bar italia spent the next while earning a reputation as one of the best live bands in the game, including a sold out and sweaty show at Auckland’s Neck of the Woods. Since then, the band have been plotting their next move in world domination, dropping fan favourite single Cowbella in June, and this week lifting the lid on Some Like It Hot with accompanying tune Fundraiser – with a video featuring Matt “Super Hans” King.
The London based band, built around the core of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton, may have looked to be hiding out this year while cooking up this new batch of tunes, but in reality they’ve been anything but dormant. Cristante teamed up with Yves Tumor for a dangerously good duet on We Don’t Count, while Jezmi and Sam dropped another full-length album under their Double Virgo moniker just last month.
With the album dropping on Matador this October, local fans will have a couple of short months to learn the words and get ready to scream and swoon along when bar italia hit our shores this December. Shit yeah!