On 4 & 6 February 2026, the UK legends joined by Dutch punk veterans Wick Bambix in Arnhem and Emilie Blom in Leiden put on memorable shows!
First, the new line-up of 1970s-1980s pioneers Au Pairs played in Luxor Live , not far from the Arnhem railway station. The building started in 1915 as a cinema. In 2008, it reopened as a music venue. The main hall was filled with 700 people for the Au Pairs gig on 4 February.
Next, Au Pairs played at Gebroeders de Nobel. The building was originally a waste paper warehouse. Since 2014, it is a music venue. The big hall can hold 800 people, and did so on 6 February.
Wick Bambix opened on all Dutch Au Pairs dates, except the one in Leiden, where Cromwell, the new band of Dutch punk veteran Emilie Blom, opened for them.
Who is Wick Bambix? You can see her in this photo, second from right. At the June 2022 Women In Punk conference in Amsterdam, she represented the second punk wave in the Netherlands in the late 20th century. To Wick’s left, from the left: Fay, of the most recent generation; Andrea, singer of De Fatwa’s, for the third, early 21st-century wave; Terry, bass/vocals of Cheap ‘n’ Nasty, of the 1970s first wave. Panel chair Helen Reddington is on the seat to the right of Wick.
Wick Bambix has been an Au Pairs fan since she was a small girl, and really appreciated now opening for the band. At 19:45, Wick and bandmate Patrick Schappert, both on acoustic guitar, played the first Bambix song of the night, ‘Oil and Mud‘. Jesse, in a Joy Division T-shirt, joined them on percussion for the second song. He did not play percussion in all songs, sometimes playing keyboard. They got applause after all their songs.
Their fourth song was ‘Julie‘, (see video above, as played a few days later in Venlo, opening for the Au Pairs.) The song ‘Dancing‘ was a cover of ‘Dancing In The Dark‘ by Bruce Springsteen. They played it to show appreciation for Bruce’s opposition to the violent occupation of Minneapolis by Donald Trump’s private I.C.E. thugs.
The next song was ‘Johan‘; with Wick encouraging the audience to sing along with the chorus. After their last song, ‘Red Flag‘ from their lastest album, and heartfelt audience applause, Wick and her fellow band members removed their instruments. The Au Pairs backdrop with scissors replaced the Wick Bambix backdrop with its cat.
The Au Pairs’ new lineup includes original singer/guitarist Lesley Woods; Jem Doulton on drums from the Thurston Moore Group; Alex Ward on guitar, also from the Thurston Moore Group; and, on bass, Estella Adeyeri of Big Joanie.
Lesley Woods, after we have missed her for decades, returned to the stage a few years ago. First, just herself, singing and her guitar. I saw Lesley solo in The Hague in 2023. Late in 2025, she started rehearsing with the new Au Pairs line-up. In January 2026, they played in the UK. The audiences reacted enthusiastically. Lesley’s strong voice sounds even better as part of a band than as solo.
The Arnhem audience, as they started, surged forward towards to the stage, dancing. The video above by Ineke Hekman shows Au Pairs in Luxor Live. Jem Doulton wore a T-shirt of the British Committee for Nuclear Disarmament on (the next two days, at the concerts in Cologne and Leiden, he would wear a shirt with multiple peace signs, signs originally designed for CND ).
With many bands, the lead singer is centre stage, between the lead guitar and the bass guitar. The Au Pairs, both in the 1970s-1980s and now, differ in that. Seen from the audience, Lesley is on the left, the bassist is centre stage, and the other guitarist is on the right.
In Leiden, the Dutch-Belgian band Cromwell opened for the Au Pairs. They are not the first band called Cromwell: there were a German ‘progressive‘ rock band, an Irish show band and a United States hard rock band of that name. It is not a good name if you want to play in Ireland.
It is the new band of bassist Emilie Blom van Assendelft , a veteran of 1970s Amsterdam punk band The Scabs, 1980s Amsterdam punk band White Lines and mainstream rock band The Scene. Emilie’s Belgian bandmates are Achiel Keppens, guitar and vocals, Kloot Per W (formerly De Kreuners) on vocals, Kurt De Waele (drums – formerly in Red Zebra, SigloXX), Eddy Scheire (keyboards, formerly Infrablack), and Erik De Ridder (guitar).
Cromwell was founded by the band sending each other sound files on the Internet during the COVID pandemic. In 2024, they met physically for the first time and decided that they wanted to play live. Among their inspirations, they name New Order.
Cromwell did not have a backdrop. Photographer Terry said they sounded better than she expected. The audience applauded after their songs. The video above is of the 2024 Cromwell song ‘Slow Down‘.
The video above by perfectbeat is from the Leiden show of ‘Headache for Michelle‘. Soon after the start of the Arnhem gig, Estella found out that her orange bass amp was not working. Lesley explained to the audience: “We did not bring a bass amp from England. We went to a music shop in Nijmegen to hire one. A nice shop, nice people. Only their good-looking bass amp does not work!”
The music restarted after Estella had reconnected her bass guitar to another amp. She was the most mobile band member, dancing intensely while simultaneously playing her bass lines. This is Au Pairs song ‘Dear John‘ as they played it at the Cambridge Junction in England, 17th January 2026. Video by Andy Wilkinson:
Their song ‘Armagh‘ got an enthusiasic reaction at both gigs. It is about is about Irish female political prisoners, of whom the British government claimed that they were not tortured. As Lesley sang the sarcastic mocking line ‘We don’t torture, we’re a civilized nation’, she sounded a bit reminiscent of Vi Subversa of Poison Girls. (video below by perfectbeat from the Leiden show).
During the Leiden show, I saw that Estella had a T-shirt on of a band with a two-word name. I could see that Bad was the first word; was the second word, hidden by the bass guitar, about Bad Brains; or Bad Religion? After the show, she told me that it was the Stevenage, UK punk band Bad Breeding.
One of their new songs was ‘In the Wrong Body‘ about transitioning. The video below by Arie van de Lagemaat is of Au Pairs playing their thirteenth song ‘It’s Obvious‘ in Leiden. The fourteenth song was ‘You.’ It is the first song the Au Pairs ever played, and the first song they ever recorded in the 1970s.
At the end of the set, the band took their instruments off, and left the stage. But by loud clapping and other noise, the audience made it very clear that they wanted to hear more.
So, as an encore, there came ‘Piece of my Heart‘, originally recorded by Erma Franklin, and made more well-known by Janis Joplin. With the chorus accelerated to Ramones speed. After the Arnhem gig, Wick Bambix told me that it was much better than she had expected, especially the drumming. Everyone went home, very satisfied.
After the first encore in Leiden, the band left, and returned again for a second encore. This perfectbeat video is the second and final encore of the Au Pairs in Leiden- ‘Black Boys on Mopeds‘ (originally by Sinéad O’Connor):
Lesley told Punktuation photographer Terry after the Leiden show that the new line-up planned to record a new album. She was pleasantly surprised that so many enthusiastic people had come to the gigs in the Netherlands. Plenty of women among them, though Lesley had hoped for even more!
Like the rest of the audience, your Punktuation team, after the concert, walked away very satisfied from the Nobel venue.
Catch Au Pairs in concert, headlining with Gina Birch (of the Raincoats) with The Unreasonables, or (if marked with *) opening for the Skids at the following UK shows:
NOTTINGHAM 27/02
LINCOLN 28/02
BELFAST 07/03
COLCHESTER 26/03
LEEDS 27/03 *
MANCHESTER 28/03 *
CARDIFF 17/04 *
LIVERPOOL 18/04 *
GLASGOW 24/04 *
EDINBURGH 25/04 *
BRISTOL 30/04
LONDON 01/05
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