Meat Loaf

meatMeat Loaf Extra Dates Announced
Tickets for Meat Loaf’s Bat Out Of Hell III tour are on sale now.

Date & Time Venue Status
10-May-07  19:30 Manchester Evening News Arena SoldOut
12-May-07  19:30 Manchester Evening News Arena SoldOut
14-May-07  19:30 Birmingham National Exhibition Centre SoldOut
16-May-07  19:30 Birmingham National Exhibition Centre SoldOut
18-May-07  19:30 Glasgow SECC Try Later
20-May-07  19:30 Newcastle Metro Radio Arena SoldOut
23-May-07  19:30 London Wembley Arena SoldOut
25-May-07  19:30 London Wembley Arena SoldOut
27-May-07  19:30 Sheffield Hallam FM Arena SoldOut
29-May-07  19:30 Sheffield Hallam FM Arena SoldOut

Van Morrison

vanWith many international hits over five decades, Van Morrison is one of the few artists to whom the music critics can accurately ascribe genius.

Van Morrison experienced initial chart success in the sixties with his band, Them, and singles like ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’ and ‘Here Comes The Night’. A prolific recording artist, his skill at marrying lyrics, tunes and arrangements influenced by blues, jazz, gospel and country has resulted in a succession of classic albums like ‘Astral Weeks’, ‘Moondance’, ‘Into The Music’, ‘Avalon Sunset’, ‘Days Like This’ and ‘What’s Wrong With This Picture?’. Tracks like ‘Bright Side of The Road’, ‘Have I Told You Lately’, ‘Gloria’ and ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ have become regular fixtures for radio airplay across the globe.

Date & Time Venue Status
01-Dec-06  20:00 Edinburgh Usher Hall Try Later
02-Dec-06  19:30 Gateshead The Sage Arena SoldOut
08-Dec-06  19:30 Malvern Theatres SoldOut
09-Dec-06  19:30 Bristol Colston Hall SoldOut
15-Dec-06  19:30 Glasgow Clyde Auditorium SoldOut
06-Apr-07  19:30 Manchester Bridgewater Hall SoldOut
07-Apr-07  19:30 Manchester Bridgewater Hall SoldOut
13-Apr-07  19:30 Oxford New Theatre SoldOut
14-Apr-07  19:30 Cardiff Millennium Centre SoldOut

Richard Ashcroft

richardWell, you heard the man, so let’s keep this simple. ‘Keys To The World’ is Richard Ashcroft’s third solo album, following July 2000’s ‘Alone With Everybody’ and November 2002’s ‘Human Conditions’. He wrote its ten songs (which last 44 minutes) over a number of years, but recorded most of them over a few days in Richmond, West London.

In the gap since his last release, Ashcroft and his wife Kate had a second child. Ashcroft also signed to Parlophone following the disintegration of Hut, the label he’d been with since making his recording debut in 1992. That was as the wired, shamanic frontman with Verve, a psychedelic rock band he’d formed with three mates at Winstanley College in Wigan. The band eventually changed their name to The Verve and, in 1997, released their third album ‘Urban Hymns’, which spawned a clutch of global hits (notably ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ and ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’), sold seven million copies and, no bullshit, defined an era.

But we digress. What else happened in those three years that Richard Ashcroft’s been away? Well, although he’s a Manchester United fan, Ashcroft watched with immense pleasure as his hometown club Wigan Athletic, with whom he played as a junior, have risen to Premiership prominence. But he’s also watched with enormous displeasure as politicians have spun out of control, wars have been waged, terrorists have terrorised and a depressed apathy has settled on the world.

While the rasping, soulful voice on ‘Keys To The World’ is unmistakably Ashcroft, the music, always hooky, always melodic, ranges from the raw rock stomp of opener ‘Why Not Nothing?’ and the harpsichord swagger of first single ‘Break The Night With Colour’ to the Curtis Mayfield-sampling swing of ‘Music Is Power’, the muscular groove of ‘Keys To The World’ and the Dylan-esque chime of ‘World Keeps Turning’.

At Live 8, by way of introducing Richard Ashcroft, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin described The Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ as “the best song ever written, sung by the best singer in the world.” That was probably a little soapy for Ashcroft’s taste, but ‘Keys To The World’ proves, perhaps more than any of his solo work to date, that those rare talents continue to burn inside him.

Date & Time Venue Status
30-Nov-06  19:30 Manchester Evening News Arena Book Now

Elton John

eltonSir Elton John has announced his first UK show of 2007 and will appear at Sheffield Hallam FM Arena on May 24th.

Since his last performance two years ago the Rocketman has staged a series of hugely successful outdoor concerts in football and cricket grounds around the country. As a result of the fantastic response to these shows, Sir Elton will undertake a limited number of concerts across Europe including visiting Sheffield for his only indoor show in the UK in 2007.

Elton and his band will perform hits from an incredible back catalogue spanning over three decades, including classic hits ‘Your Song’, ‘Bitch is Back’, ‘Are You Ready For Love’, ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’ and ‘I Want Love’ as well as tracks from the his new album ‘Captain and the Kid’. Media partners is 50thanniversarygifts.co.uk

Date & Time Venue Status
24-May-07  19:30 Sheffield Hallam FM Arena Book Now

Amy Winehouse

amyTwo years ago, in the middle of the campaign for her universally acclaimed, platinum selling debut “Frank”, Amy Winehouse began thinking about what she’d like to do with her second record. Frank was her grand and suitably blunt-speaking break-up record, sometimes a little bitter, with a maturity in the vocal delivery that was never less than sweet. It won her a battalion of fans around the world and marked her out as one of the most distinct new voices in pop; confessional, elemental and with that rarest of combinations: humour and soul. Amy had cut through to the core of the human condition with her debut, adding her own jazzy witticisms to the legacy of the greats. So how to follow it up?
Musically, she was sure where she wanted to go. “I didn’t want to play the jazz thing up too much again” she says now, sitting in the snug of her favourite Camden boozer, ”I was bored of complicated chord structures and needed something more direct. I’d been listening to a lot of girl-groups from the fifties and sixties. I liked the simplicity of that stuff. It just gets to the point. So I started thinking about writing songs in that way.” You can hear it on the subtley Supremes-referencing intro of Back To Black. But her reach stretches further. While the girl-groups of the sixties to which she had become enthralled contained their vocals, Amy can break loose with Aretha-style vocal stylings on “Just Friends” or by turning the whole idea of drying out into a gospel spiritual on the stunning opener “Rehab”. Which other female British singer could turn the opening line on her album – “try to make me go to rehab/I say no, no, no” into a churchy stomp.

Date & Time Venue Status
23-Feb-07  19:00 Liverpool Carling Academy Book Now
25-Feb-07  19:00 Manchester Academy 1 Book Now
03-Mar-07  19:30 Sheffield University Octagon Book Now
05-Mar-07  19:30 Nottingham Rock City Book Now

Genesis

genesisTickets for Genesis go on sale at 9am Friday 24th November.
Genesis is a member of a small elite of British bands that have not only achieved massive international success but have sustained this over four decades. The news that the band’s most successful line-up of Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford were reforming after a break of 15 years for a European tour, was seized on by both fans and media alike.
Genesis have a sort of Midas Touch: the band released a series of groundbreaking albums in the seventies, became superstars in the eighties, survived the departures of not one but two lead vocalists/members at a crucial stage in their career, and have inspired tribute bands dedicated to just about every album in their superlative catalogue. They have sold over 130 million albums worldwide, played 1400 shows, including some of the most ambitious and theatrical performances ever staged, and gone from bottom of the bill with their Charisma label mates Lindisfarne and Van Der Graaf Generator in 1971 to headlining four consecutive sell-out dates at Wembley Stadium in 1987 playing to 288,000 people in total
They have topped the charts around the world with albums as diverse as Duke, Abacab, Genesis, Invisible Touch and We Can’t Dance and they remain a staple at radio across Europe, the US, Canada and beyond with tracks like ‘I Know What I Like’, ‘Follow You, Follow Me’, ‘Mama’, ‘That’s All’, ‘In Too Deep’, ‘Land Of Confusion’, ‘Tonight, Tonight, Tonight’ and ‘Throwing It All Away’. They have influenced bands as diverse as Simple Minds, Marillion, It Bites, the Flaming Lips, Elbow, The Feeling and Captain. In fact, over thirty years before Pete Doherty sang about ‘Albion’, Genesis took their Lewis Carroll/Alice In Wonderland infused vision of Britain around the world with albums like Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and Selling England By The Pound.

Date & Time Venue Status
07-Jul-07  16:30 Manchester Old Trafford Try Later
07-Jul-07  16:30 Manchester Old Trafford Try Later
08-Jul-07  16:30 London Twickenham Try Later

George Michael

georgeGeorge Michael
George Michael has added one more show to his huge 25Live UK tour. The new date is December 17th at London Wembley Arena. George Michael has enjoyed one of the most successful and enduring careers in the history of pop music, selling more than 85 million records globally and encompassing 11 British No.1 singles, seven British No.1 albums and 6 US No.1 singles,. In 2004, he was declared the most played British artist on radio over the course of the last 20 years.
After years of rumour and speculation, legendary superstar George has officially announced that he will be touring for the first time since 1991. He will be performing a selection of songs taken from ALL of his albums, including some classic Wham! tracks.

Date & Time Venue Status
28-Nov-06  19:30 London Earls Court SoldOut
29-Nov-06  19:30 London Earls Court SoldOut
02-Dec-06  19:30 Birmingham National Exhibition Centre SoldOut
03-Dec-06  19:30 Birmingham National Exhibition Centre SoldOut
04-Dec-06  19:30 Birmingham National Exhibition Centre SoldOut
11-Dec-06  19:30 London Wembley Arena SoldOut
12-Dec-06  19:30 London Wembley Arena SoldOut
14-Dec-06  19:30 London Wembley Arena SoldOut
15-Dec-06  19:30 London Wembley Arena SoldOut
17-Dec-06  19:30 London Wembley Arena Book Now