Cancer Bats Announce January 2027 Australian Tour With Heriot, Plus Two BAT FEST Shows

Cancer Bats have confirmed an Australian run for January and February 2027. Heriot will join the band for the headline dates, and two BAT FEST shows are scheduled, one in Melbourne and one on the Sunshine Coast.

The tour is still more than a year out, which says something about how Australian routing works for touring bands at this level. Announce a year ahead, sell the rooms, and build the surrounding event around it rather than treating the country as a stopover. Bringing Heriot along gives the run a contemporary edge: the British band’s blunt, heavy sound sits naturally beside Cancer Bats’ hardcore punk, and it puts a younger name in front of an audience that has been following the Toronto group for two decades.

The BAT FEST dates extend that logic. Rather than two identical club shows, the band gets to shape a fuller bill in two cities, one of them outside the usual capital-city circuit.

There is a second thread to the announcement. Frontman Liam Cormier plans to shave his head for charity, with donations directed to The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation. For a band whose name carries the disease, the gesture reads less like a stunt than a familiar point of contact between the group and the cause. Details on the shave and how to donate have yet to be spelled out alongside the dates.