Brighton’s Mutations Festival announces Fat Dog & Mike D 5D (Beastie Boys) as first headliners for its eighth edition, running 23 - 24 October 2026
- Desh Kapur
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Mutations Festival 2026
Brighton’s Mutations Festival announces Fat Dog & Mike D 5D (Beastie Boys) as first headliners for its eighth edition, running 23 - 24 October 2026
Tickets on sale this Wednesday 22 July at 10am via www.mutationsfestival.com
Brighton’s seminal multi-venue festival, Mutations, today announces its eighth edition, returning on Friday 23 and Saturday 24 October 2026 and announces the festival’s first two headline acts - Fat Dog and Mike D.
FAT DOG
The undefinable, undeniable, raucous Fat Dog return to Brighton after a period of calm, with renewed ferocity, new members and new music. The band, with chief rabble rouser Joe Love at the eye of the storm and now expanded to a seven piece, will be bringing their riotous live experience back to Mutations Festival but this time in their rightful place as festival headliners.
Arriving in October, the band will release their sophomore album Cancel Me (I’m Tired) on Domino Records, an exhilarating, swaggering, panoramic, inventive, re-inventive, re-re-inventive electro-punk-art-pop-rock’n’roll-space-country triumph that deserves all the adjectives. It blends electro-pop anthems, cascading rave bangers, cowboy-tinged pitstops and swirling psychedelia. Into its lyrical orbit, the record pulls mentions of addiction, family ties, love, AI, ancestry, extra-terrestrials, Chris Tarrant, S&M, B&M, H&M and M&Ms.
MIKE D 5D (Beastie Boys)
Mike Diamond, aka Mike D, needs little introduction. As one third of the Beastie Boys, alongside Adam Yauch (MCA) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock), Mike D helped redefine hip-hop and shape the sound of a generation. Across a multi-platinum career spanning more than three decades, the Beastie Boys became one of the most influential and successful groups of all time, winning multiple Grammy Awards and earning induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.
Mike D’s debut solo album, Thank You, released on 28 August via Capitol Records, comprises 13 servings of sonically inventive post-electronic grooves and hypnotic hooks, with his unmistakable voice guiding listeners through an aural playground that defies easy categorisation.
Hailed by Rolling Stone as “embodied with the punk energy that led to his band’s early breakthrough”, Mike D 5D - featuring Mike alongside his sons Skyler and Davis Diamond, Eddie Ruscha, Will Graefe and Milo Ruscha - will deliver a rare headline performance at Mutations Festival. The landmark appearance marks the first live show by a member of the Beastie Boys in Brighton since the band’s legendary performance with Run-DMC at the Brighton Centre in May 1987.
With a full line-up of over 90 of the most exciting international breakthrough and established artists, all to be announced in the coming weeks, the 2026 edition of Mutations Festival is promising to be the most ambitious and exciting edition yet.
Renowned for consistently showcasing the next big thing, from CMAT, Yard Act and Sprints in 2021; to The Last Dinner Party, Wunderhorse and Fat Dog in 2022; English Teacher, Antony Szmierek and Paris Paloma in 2023; Kneecap, Arooj Aftab and Adult DVD in 2024; to Keo and Big Special in 2025; Mutations Festival 2026 will be no exception.
Mutations Festival takes place across 9 of Brighton’s most beloved Grassroots Music Venues: Chalk ⬣ Patterns ⬣ Revenge ⬣ The Hope and Ruin ⬣ Green Door Store ⬣ Dust ⬣ The Prince Albert ⬣ Folklore Rooms ⬣ Alphabet
Tickets start at just £35 and go on sale this Wednesday 22nd July 10am via: