The God Save the Queens festival is bringing together members of the Raincoats, the Slits, and X-Ray Spex for a one-night supergroup performance at Electric Brixton on 16 October, part of a sprawling London-wide programme organised by the Up Yours! collective that runs from July to November 2026, according to the Museum of Youth Culture.
The show is billed as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of feminist punk, and it arrives alongside a dedicated exhibition at the Museum of Youth Culture in Camden. The festival has been pulling together a broader range of events across the capital for months, making the Electric Brixton night the culmination rather than a one-off.
Who Is Playing the God Save the Queens Festival
The supergroup lineup brings together Gina Birch of the Raincoats and Hollie Cook of the Slits with X-Ray Spex’s Lora Logic and Paul Dean. The four will perform together for one night only, playing what Logic describes as ‘iconic songs’ from a movement that defined a generation of women in punk.
Punk historian Vivien Goldman, author of Revenge of the She-Punks, will also appear at the festival. Joining her on the bill are Akiko Matsuura, Rhoda Dakar, Hot Wax, and Celeste Bell, the daughter of X-Ray Spex frontwoman Poly Styrene.
Goldman was direct about what the event represents. ‘When I wrote Revenge of the She-Punks, it was about mapping out the global lineage of women who used music to dismantle stereotypes and claim their own space,’ she said in a statement. ‘This festival, and the incredible night we are putting together at Electric Brixton, is that book coming to life on stage. It’s a vital, living continuation of that rebel culture, proving that the female narrative in punk is not an afterthought; it is a driving, evolving force.’
Logic, for her part, placed the performance in the context of everything else she has contributed to the project. ‘Contributing previously unseen artwork to the exhibition while also stepping onto the stage to play these iconic songs again feels like completing a full circle and is incredibly special,’ she said. ‘For me, the creative expression of the movement was always multi-dimensional; it was visual art, clothes and noise all at once.’
The Exhibition and What Happens Next
The God Save the Queens festival feeds directly into a new exhibition at the Museum of Youth Culture in Camden. According to Euronews, the exhibition opens on 23 October and runs until 22 November, meaning the Electric Brixton show lands just days before the doors open. Many of the performers on the bill have contributed archival material, artwork, and more to the exhibition itself, so the connection between the live events and the show floor is built in from the start.
That overlap between the gig programme and the exhibition is part of what makes this more than a nostalgia circuit. Logic handing over previously unseen artwork while simultaneously rehearsing to perform those same songs live is precisely the kind of multi-dimensional approach she describes as central to the original movement. It is not reconstruction. It is continuation.
The Up Yours! collective has framed the entire programme around the idea that feminist punk was never a footnote to the wider punk story. The anniversary gives that argument a fixed point to work from, but the July-to-November span of the festival, confirmed by the Museum of Youth Culture, suggests an ambition well beyond a single commemorative gig. London has been getting this material across multiple venues and contexts for months before the Electric Brixton headline show arrives.
For anyone who missed the first wave, or who was told the story second-hand, the exhibition at the Museum of Youth Culture opens 23 October and gives you until 22 November to catch it.
