Refused at the 3Olympia, Dublin – October 5th, 2025

For a band who once declared themselves dead, Refused sound more alive than ever. At Dublin’s 3Olympia, the Swedish post-hardcore pioneers turned what could have been a perfunctory farewell into a joyous act of rebellion — less a eulogy, more an exorcism.

They opened with “Poetry Written in Gasoline” and “The Shape of Punk to Come,” and from there, the pace rarely relented. “Rather Be Dead,” “Summerholidays vs. Punkroutine,” and *“New Noise” all hit with that signature sense of whiplash precision, every riff sharpened to a point. Even after all these years, the songs remain volatile, their politics not diluted but distilled.

Dennis Lyxzén, now 53 years old and still a tornado in motion, has grown into a performer who blends fury with grace. He stalks and shimmies across the stage like a punk James Brown, part preacher, part provocateur, in a frilly pink shirt that glowed under the stage lights.

Before the encore, he laughed about the weirdness of aging in a hardcore band: “When we started playing in a band, you’d play 20 minutes and you’re 19. Now we’re like 50 and we play 80 minutes and we’re like ‘what the fuck?’”

That blend of self-deprecation and defiance summed up the night. Refused aren’t pretending to be the same band who self-destructed in 1998; they’re something else entirely. The suits, the polish, the poise. It’s evolution, not irony.

Lyxzén spoke with candour throughout, pausing the ferocity to talk about what’s always defined Refused: conviction. “We always talked about shit that mattered to us… Punk and hardcore explained the world to me… It told me, ‘yes, you are a creep. It’s also okay.’”

It was a raw, moving moment; a reminder that beneath all the slogans and noise, there’s empathy at the core of this band. He went on to rail against the rise of right-wing populism and the way culture wars are used to divide: “The culture war is 80% so we forget about the class war… If you think that trans people are the problem, or the immigrants are the problem, or the LGBT community is the problem, well, you might be the fucking problem.”

When he praised Ireland for being “on the right side of history” — invoking artists who have spoken out against “genocide on your screens” and the “death of democracy in the West” — it led to a spontaneous, unified chant of “Free, Free Palestine.” In that moment, the show transcended nostalgia and became something immediate, urgent, necessary.

Refused’s story has always been one of contradiction. Their 1998 opus The Shape of Punk to Come (ignored on release, canonised later) collapsed under its own ambition and the band’s political anxiety. They couldn’t reconcile revolution with rock stardom, and their breakup felt like martyrdom. Their self-written obituary, Refused Are Fucking Dead, closed the book with contempt for the very industry they had infiltrated.

But the resurrection that began in 2012 was different. Unlike many legacy reunions, it wasn’t nostalgia for rent. They made new records (Freedom, War Music), wrote for Cyberpunk 2077, and kept pushing forward. Even now, as they prepare to retire the name once more, there’s no trace of cynicism, only resolve. Lyxzén made clear that while Refused will end, their creative partnership will continue under a new banner.

This iteration of the band (without founding guitarist Kristofer Steen and longtime member Jon Brännström) is leaner, sharper, but no less potent. Magnus Flagge (bass) and Mattias Bärjed (guitar) have long since settled as official band members, both having played on War Music. They pay respect to the past without embalming it. The inclusion of early cuts like “Circle Pit” and “Pump the Brakes” bridged eras beautifully, while “The Deadly Rhythm” morphed into a gleeful tease of Slayer’s “Raining Blood.”

Openers Strong Boys were a blast of queercore energy raw and unfiltered, though their message sometimes got lost in the density of their sound. Still, their conviction and fire were infectious. Quicksand, meanwhile, were nothing short of electric. Fronted by the eternally youthful Walter Schreifels, who must really like it here, having only just played Dublin with his hardcore supergroup Rival Schools. They delivered a masterclass in muscular groove and melodic heft. By rights, they could have headlined; their influence on post-hardcore is every bit as vital as Refused’s own.

By the time “New Noise” detonated towards the set’s end, it felt less like a greatest hit and more like a communal exorcism. Lyxzén grinned, exhausted but elated. For a band that once couldn’t make peace with their own ideals, they finally seemed at ease with themselves.

Refused may be retiring, but they’ve never sounded more purposeful. Last night, they didn’t just perform, they made good on their promise to reshape punk, one final time.

REFUSED ARE DEAD – LONG LIVE REFUSED