John Lydon’s iconoclastic band Public Image Ltd (PiL) has announced a major tour of the UK and Ireland for summer 2025.
The 23-date tour billed as ‘This Is Not The Last Tour’ will start in Bristol on 22nd May and end in Belfast on 16th August, and includes dates along the way in Dublin (12th June) and Cardiff (14th June).
The tour also includes festival appearances at Stone Valley South in Ware (23rd May), Stone Valley Midlands in Newark (27th June), Rebellion Festival in Blackpool (7th August), Stone Valley North in Durham (8th August) and Putting the Fast in Belfast (16th August).
PiL’s tour dates for 2025 come after Lydon thought the band might not tour again. His lifelong friend and manager, John Rambo Stevens, passed away suddenly following the last PiL tour in December 2023, soon after Lydon’s wife, Nora, died in April 2023.
Lydon thought that might be the end of his touring days. However, he was overwhelmed by the love and support of fans when he undertook a spoken word tour of the UK in the spring of this year.
Lydon said: “I thought that might be it. After losing Nora and Rambo, I couldn’t see a way through. I’d already committed to the spoken word tour this spring, and I never let anyone down – I always stick to my word – so I had to do those dates.
“The thing is, people were so overwhelmingly positive, and they asked me to tour PiL again. With so many people asking and with the band meaning so much to them, I couldn’t just stay on my sofa and not tour – tempting though that obviously is.”
With a shifting line-up and unique sound – fusing rock, dance, folk, pop and dub – Lydon guided the band from their debut album ‘First Issue’ in 1978 through to 1992’s ‘That What Is Not’, before a 17-year hiatus.
Lydon reactivated PiL in 2009, touring extensively and releasing three critically acclaimed albums, ‘This is PiL’ (2012), ‘What The World Needs Now…’ (2015) and ‘End of World’ (2023).
The complete list of PiL’s 2025 tour dates is as follows:
22nd May Bristol 02 Academy
23rd May Ware Stone Valley Festival South
24th May Bournemouth 02 Academy
29th May Barnsley Birdwell
30th May Newcastle Boiler Shop
31st May Norwich Epic Studios
12th June Dublin 3Olympia
13th June Limerick Dolan’s Warehouse
14th June Cardiff Depot
20th June Vitoria-Gasteiz Azkena Rock Festival
26th June Hastings White Rock
27th June Newark Stone Valley Festival Midlands
28th June Oxford O2 Academy
3rd July Leicester O2 Academy
4th July Lincoln Engine Shed
5th July Portsmouth Guildhall
30th July Sheffield Leadmill
31st July Northampton Roadmenders
1st August Holmfirth Picturedrome
7th August Blackpool Rebellion Festival
8th August Durham Stone Valley Festival North
9th August Coventry Empire
15th August Cork City Hall
16th August Belfast Putting the Fast in Belfast, Custom House Square
