Sprints and Maruja play the 100 Club for the Punk Special 50th anniversary

Sprints and Maruja will headline two anniversary shows at the 100 Club on 20 and 21 September 2026, marking 50 years since the venue's Punk Special. The Line of Best Fit reported the booking on September 1, and the shows are listed on the festival tracker.

The original ran across the same two dates in September 1976 and was built almost entirely from unsigned bands. The bill carried the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Damned, Buzzcocks, Subway Sect, Chris Spedding & The Vibrators and Stinky Toys from Paris. Vivienne Westwood and Paul Weller were among those in the room.

The Irish band Sprints take the 20 September headline slot, with the Manchester experimental punk band Maruja on 21 September. Both will be joined by special guests who have yet to be named.

Tickets are priced at 1.50 pounds, the exact price charged in 1976, and go on sale at 2pm BST on Friday 4 September. That is a deliberate choice rather than a rounding: the venue is charging 50-year-old money for a 50-year anniversary.

Jeff Horton, who owns the 100 Club, put the case for the genre bluntly. "In my personal opinion, Punk is THE most important genre and subculture that the UK, or anyone else has ever produced," he said.

Horton pointed to the background of despair, racism, poverty and sexism the scene came out of, and said the two bands were chosen because they reflect what punk means in 2026. The London basement remains one of the last small rock rooms of that era still trading, and punk anniversaries and festivals have been a running thread here, from Decolonise Fest naming its last 2026 acts to the new God Save The Queens festival booking Big Joanie.