Cult indie band visit Sunderland as part of 40th Anniversary Tour

Celebrating four decades of rich and strange indie classics, CUD promise a medley of early
earworms, chart hits and newly minted melodies. Coming to a town near you with their brand
of unrepentant good-time indie pop.

2026 40th Anniversary Tour
Thursday 27th August Cheltenham The Steam and Whistle
Friday 28th August Peterborough The Met Lounge
Saturday 29th August Norwich Voodoo Daddy’s
Thursday 3rd September Edinburgh Bannerman’s
Friday 4th September York The Crescent
Saturday 5th September Sunderland Independent
Friday 2nd to Sat 3rd October Whitby Only (a weekend in Whitby)
Friday 23rd October Hull The New Adelphi Club
Saturday 24th October Birmingham The Castle & Falcon
Thursday 29th October Sheffield Sidney & Matilda
Friday 30th October Preston The Continental
Saturday 31st October Shipley Kirkgate Centre SOLD OUT
Friday 6th November London Dingwalls
Saturday 7th November Scunthorpe Cafe INDIE

Emerging from the same art/design cauldron that produced fellow Leeds legends Soft Cell, Scritti
Politti, and The Mekons, CUD were the pre-Britpop answer to doleful shoegazing bands – fun-loving,
light-hearted, romantic and downright catchy.

Alternatively loved or loathed like a yeast extract, CUD are indie rock for the unpretentious pleasure
seeker, boasting as they do the rich deep-lunged voice of Carl Puttnam, edgy guitars of Mike Dunphy,
tight, funky rhythm section of William Potter, bass and Gogs Byrn, drums.

Originally formed in Leeds in 1986 while the members studied art and graphic design courses at the
city’s Polytechnic, the band soon found some early acclaim under an unlikely and fortuitous series of
events. It had recently been announced on air that the legendary taste maker Radio 1 DJ John Peel has
thrown away the many thousands of tapes from hopeful new bands that he had been unable to listen
to, but promised he’d listen to those received from now on. It was this very week that CUD had sent
him their very first recording done on the college 4 track recorder, and were stunned one evening,
while rehearsing in singer Carl’s damp cellar, to receive a phone call from Peel’s producer John Walters
offering then a session on the show just days later. It seems completely improbable now, but there
were just two weeks between CUD recording a useful demo and then recording their first Peel session
for the BBC, at the legendary Maida Vale studio.

A debut single ‘Mind the Gap’ on fellow Leeds band The Wedding Present’s label Reception soon
followed, and then on to Imaginary Records of Manchester (also home to The Mock Turtles and The
Chameleons), where CUD enjoyed 2 critically acclaimed albums, the now cult ‘When in Rome, Kill Me’
and ‘Leggy Mambo’, the latter produced by XTC’s Dave Gregory. Several singles were released too
around this time that featured in both Peel’s Festive Fifty and the indie charts, while they also became
dancefloor favourites at ‘indie discos’ up and down the UK’s student union bars and rock clubs. Songs such as ‘Only (a Prawn in Whitby)’, ‘Hey!Wire’, ‘Robinson Crusoe’ and ‘Magic’ are all still (and forever
more) firm favourites in the band’s current live set.

In 1991 came a big move to major label A&M, whose finances helped the band reach the top 40 in the
‘proper’ charts for the first time, with singles ‘Rich and Strange’ and ‘Purple Love Balloon’ reaching
numbers 24 and 27 respectively, and with that coming music paper covers, huge tours in big venues,
and third album ‘Asquarius’ appearing in NME’s top albums of 1992, while single ‘Rich and Strange’
was also in their top tracks of the year.

Unfortunately for CUD, the timing of the 2nd major label album ‘Showbiz’ was poor. Having been
lumped into the music journo invented proto-britpop scene of ‘Lion-Pop’ not long before by then NME
and Select writer Stuart Maconie, along with other uniquely British sounding acts such as St Etienne
and Suede, the album came a year too soon to be swept away in the Britpop frenzy of 1995, thus
seeing CUD watch many of their indie contemporaries, such as Blur and Pulp, go on to have massive
success. The end was nigh, and despite limping on for a further year or so with increasing label
frustrations, they decided to call it a day in 1995.

Fast forward to 2013, and the release of a ‘Complete BBC Sessions’ 4CD boxset prompted the chaps to
reconvene and hit the road once more, albeit, without original drummer Steve Goodwin. Despite
intending this to be a ‘one off’ there’s no sign of quitting again soon, with annual tours ever since, new
material, and also sharing indie ‘heritage’ festival bills with the likes of The Wonder Stuff, Peter Hook,
The Wedding Present, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and Embrace.

This year, rather incredibly, sees the band’s 40th Anniversary, and to celebrate they are packing the van
once again, something they now combine with ‘proper’ jobs, throughout the 2nd half of 2026. Ever
excited to be hitting the road and stage, the band still bring an energy and a groove unlike any other
that brings their devoted ‘CUDets’ (and often the next generation, or two!) dancing and jumping
around, completely enraptured.