Much of the appeal of the late, great, sorely-missed John Peel was the boyish enthusiasm he maintained for music right into his elder years. And, for all the tens of thousands of hours of material he listened to, few things ever got him as excited as the first time he heard 'Teenage Kicks' by The Undertones.

Famously, it remained his favourite song. It adds to the charm of the man that while no self-respecting muso would ever pin their colours to the mast and actually name something as gauche as a favourite song, he was quite prepared to admit that the Derry band's track about the youthful thrill caused by 'another girl in the neighbourhood' sometimes reduced him to tears of helpless love.

When the EP arrived at Radio 1, John Peel liked it so much that he played it twice on air. What resulted was a near three-decade association between the band and the legendary broadcaster, with Peel helping the young band just as much as their music thrilled him.

Thirty-five years after The Undertones first got together, and shorn of their original, iconic frontman Feargal Sharkey, who became lost in pop in the eighties and never really made it back, The Undertones are marking the anniversary by taking their energetic punk on the road again this December. Paul McLoone replaced Sharkey when the band reformed in 1999, 16 years after they split, and there have been two new records with the revised line-up.

The 35th Anniversary Tour kicks off at The Ironworks in Inverness on Thursday 1st December, followed by gigs in Darlington, Leamington Spa, Southsea, Gloucester and Leeds, before the final date of the run at Concorde 2 in Brighton on 10th December.

We have tickets for all dates available now, priced around £16.

Ahead of the headline gigs, The Undertones play a special gig at the Eurosurf 2011 Festival in Bundoran, County Donegal on 1st October.