Del Amitri are preparing to take to the stage in venues across the UK for the first time in over four years.
Del Amitri – Justin Currie (vocals, guitar), Iain Harvie (lead guitar), Andy Alston (keys), Kris Dollimore (guitar) and Ashley Soan (drums) – will embark on their UK tour next month beginning on the 20th July at Newcastle City Hall and culminating in two hometown shows at Glasgow Barrowlands on the 28th and 29th. The Scots chart-botherers will also headline Edinburgh Castle for the first time in 25 years.
“25 years ago we played Edinburgh Castle to the biggest headline audience we’d ever been in front of,” says frontman Justin Currie. “I wore a kilt and my bass didn’t work for the first two minutes during which we played the opening riff of ‘The Ones That You Love Lead You Nowhere’ over and over again. We never recovered. This is our chance to make up for it. I won’t be wearing a kilt…”
The forthcoming tour will also see them return to London’s Hammersmith Apollo – where they played a sold-out show in January 2014 on ‘The A To Z of Us Tour’, their first UK dates for more than a decade.
“Preparations for our Seven Cities tour in July are proceeding apace,” says Currie. “Costumes have been assembled from Harris tweed and jute from Dundee, dance moves rehearsed with our Brazilian choreography team while an enormous set is being fabricated on the Clyde by a crack team of papier-mâché sculptresses. The overarching concept for all this escapes us at this juncture but we’d like to reassure our fans that songs obscure and blindingly obvious will be played in no particular order, mainly on guitars.”
We can only hope that Currie is joking about the dance moves, but fans will be taking very seriously his confirmation in pre-tour interviews that there will be a couple of new songs appearing on this tour.
Whether they’re playing much-loved hit singles or new material, Del Amitri always put on an unmissable show.
Del Amitri 2018 UK tour dates
July 20 Newcastle City Hall
July 21 Edinburgh Castle
July 22 Manchester Apollo
July 23 Birmingham Symphony Hall
July 25 Nottingham Royal Concert Hall
July 26 London Hammersmith Apollo
July 28 Glasgow Barrowlands
July 29 Glasgow Barrowlands
Tickets for all dates on sale now via Gigsandtours.com and Ticketmaster.co.uk.
