The Living End Announce 25th Anniversary Celebrations For Self-Titled Album

The Living End have detailed plans to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their classic debut album – the eponymous effort that arrived in October of 1998 – with both a deluxe reissue and ultra-special live show.

The deluxe album will arrive on October 13, just one day after its actual quarter-century anniversary. In addition to the original 14 songs, it’ll feature a ten-track live performance that The Living End recorded for triple j’s Live At The Wireless series in 1998. Physical bonus goodies include new packaging for the CD and vinyl, and a 32-page booklet featuring archival photos and liner notes written by frontman Chris Cheney. You can pre-order a copy of the reissue here.

Also announced today (August 1) was a one-off show in The Living End’s hometown of Naarm/Melbourne, where they’ll perform at Festival Hall on Saturday November 4. It’ll see them perform the iconic record from cover to cover, as well as select gems from across their other seven albums. Tickets go on sale at 12pm AEST this Friday (August 4), with a presale starting at the same time a day earlier (August 3). You can sign up to the band’s mailing list for access to the presale, or bookmark this link for the general sale.

The Living End’s self-titled album remains one of the most important releases in Australian rock history. It’s also the band’s all-time most successful, peaking at #1 on the ARIA Charts and racking up four Platinum certifications. The singles Second Solution and Prisoner Of Society (released as a double A-Side in 1997) also went Platinum twice, while Save The Day and All Torn Down have both earned Gold status.

Reflecting on the record, Cheney said in a press release: “I think unknowingly our destination was always this; this album right here. All songs led here. All the gigs and all the songs we’d written and rejected over the years, all the lessons we’d learned had been building up to this... our first album.

“Ultimately what we captured was a melting pot full of our influences but not to the extent that we sounded confused. The way we played glued it all together. Stylistically, it had punk (West End Riot), metal (Growing Up Falling Down), pop (I Want A Day), rockabilly (Second Solution), hillbilly thrash on steroids (Prisoner Of Society), jazz (Fly Away), ska (Trapped and All Torn Down), swampy surf twang (Bloody Mary), country pickin’ and anything else we thought we could throw at it.”