- - Iconic '90s Punk Band Bikini Kill Announces 2026 U.S. Tour Dates

Jacqueline Burt CoteJanuary 28, 2026 at 4:00 AM

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Photo by Lindsay Brice on Getty Images

As the pioneers of the riot grrrl movement, it could be argued that feminist punk band Bikini Kill was one of the most important groups to come out of the '90s. Unfortunately, the band broke up before the decade was out, but the beloved musicians made the dreams of countless fans come true when they reunited in 2017...and now they're heading back out on the road.

Led by iconic frontwoman Kathleen Hanna, Bikini Kill is scheduled to kick off a tour of the U.S. on Sept. 6 in Portland, Oregon, according to Pitchfork, after headlining Oakland California's Mosswood Meltdown on July 19. They'll go on to visit cities including Chicago and Boston before wrapping up the month on the 25th in Brooklyn.

The past couple of years have been busy ones for the band, who made their late-night TV debut in 2024 on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert playing their classic anthem "Rebel Girl." That same year, Hanna published her New York Times bestselling memoir Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk.

During an interview with NPR promoting the book, Hanna reflected on the early days of the riot grrrl movement, recalling how Bikini Kill tried to make their concerts "safe spaces" for female audience members.

"We did stuff like hand out lyric sheets that had the lyrics on them so that other girls and women would know these are the lyrics and what the subject matter was, because a lot of times you couldn't understand what I was saying through the crappy PAs I was singing through, and sometimes even talking in between songs, you couldn't understand what I was saying," Hanna explained. "And so that was one way that [we] gave them a souvenir to take home, to read through and think about and maybe disagree with so that they start their own bands or it encourages them to write their own poetry or write their own zines."

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"We also had zines that talked about a lot of different political issues of the day that we sold at our shows," Hanna continued. "We prioritized having girls and women come up to the front, because a lot of the shows we were playing back then, it was straight, cisgender white guys predominating and taking up all the space of the room. And we really selfishly wanted to build the community so we had more girl bands to play with. And how is that going to happen if they're all stuck in the back?"

"So I started inviting the girls to the front," Hanna said. "'Hey, do you guys want to come to the front?' And then it kind of became a thing...It was like, what if we just rearrange this room a little bit? What's going to happen? And what happened was a lot of men were really mad and hated us. But it was also an interesting experiment."

Decades later, the experiment continues.

Related: '70s Rock Legend, 78, Announced as Headliner of Star-Studded 2026 Festival

This story was originally published by Parade on Jan 28, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”