Rap group Public Enemy and Grateful Dead founding member Bob Weir will be returning to London after a long absence to perform at the Royal Albert Hall this summer.
Public Enemy, which was founded in Long Island, New York, in the 1980s with Flavor Flav and Chuck D, will perform at the venue near Hyde Park in their first UK performance in more than half a decade.
The “one-night-only” event will be held on June 27 2025, and see the group perform their biggest hits – which have included Fight The Power, Rebel Without A Pause and Don’t Believe The Hype.
They previously toured in 2019 as the Gods Of Rap along with the Wu-Tang Clan, De La Soul, and DJ Premier.
Weir is playing his first London show in more than two decades as he heads to the 5,272-capacity Royal Albert Hall to perform with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and his band, the Wolf Bros, on June 21.
He will be joined by his Wolf Bros bandmates: Don Was on bass, Jeff Chimenti on piano and Jay Lane on drums. The latter two were also part of his band, Dead And Company.
The evening will feature Grateful Dead classics, and Weir’s solo catalogue as they perform with a full 68-piece orchestra.
This orchestral project debuted in the US in 2022 with a four-night run at the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC, where the band performed with the National Symphony Orchestra.
For their first UK performance in almost a decade, hip-hop legends @PublicEnemyFTP join us for a once in a lifetime evening in June.
— Royal Albert Hall (@RoyalAlbertHall) April 1, 2025
Priority booking for Friends & Patrons open at 9am on Thu 3 April. General sale starts at 9am on Fri 4 April: https://t.co/6mAk3uVfwI pic.twitter.com/bKSBPHFfhn
One of Weir’s last performances in London was in the early 2000s at the Astoria with his band RatDog.
Weir has been honoured as a Kennedy Centre Honours recipient, with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and as an inductee of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
The Grateful Dead became known for its fusion of genres including rock, jazz and folk which contributed to the countercultural generation of the 1960s, and released the songs Uncle John’s Band, Casey Jones and Touch Of Grey.
