One of my favourite bands of the past decade, Idlewild have announced a string of 2010 UK tour dates for March.

Tickets are on sale now at £15 each. Catch the guys at:

Wednesday 3rd March 2010 – Bristol Thekla
Thursday 4th March 2010 – Gloucester Guildhall
Saturday 6th March 2010 – Plymouth Hippo
Monday 8th March 2010 – Reading Sub 89
Tuesday 9th March 2010 – Brighton Concorde 2
Thursday 11th March 2010 – Liverpool Masque
Friday 12th March 2010 – Preston 53 Degrees

One of my favourite live bands, Idlewild, have announced a full October UK tour to support their forthcoming new album.

Tickets go on sale at 9am on Friday (31st July), and are £15 for all dates except London, which is £16 a ticket.

Saturday 10th October – Manchester Academy
Sunday 11th October – Nottingham Rescue Rooms
Monday 12th October – Exeter Phoenix Centre
Tuesday 13th October – Colchester Arts Centre
Thursday 15th October – Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms
Friday 16th October – Camden Electric Ballroom
Sunday 18th October – Oxford O2 Academy
Monday 19th October – Norwich Waterfront
Tuesday 27th October – Middlesbrough Empire
Wednesday 28th October – Leeds Cockpit
Thursday 29th October – Birmingham O2 Academy 2
Friday 30th October – Sheffield Leadmill

10. Idlewild at London’s ULU (3rd July)
First time catching the indie rockers, blown away. So much so that I caught them again in Bristol just a month later, they were that good. They showed just how they’ve managed to be so successful for the past decade, with energy and great songs.

9. I’m From Barcelona at London Scala (25th November)
I know I said I’d write a review and then didn’t, but things were kinda hectic with university stuff at the time. Still, I’m From Barcelona provided one of the best nights of entertainment I’ve had in a while – chaotic, crazy, they had so much energy I was finding bits of ticker tape for days after.

8. Bloc Party at London’s Apple Store (10th October)
My second Bloc Party experience of the year, hot and sweaty in the Apple Store. I was expecting a bland, boring performance but we got anything but – chaotic, Kele was on top form, crawling over the crowd, standing all over the place. I’d hate to have had the job of cleaning up the next morning!

7. Friendly Fires at Oxford Zodiac (5th October)
My second time seeing Friendly Fires, they were even more intense than the first time. Loud, energetic, and slightly chaotic – we forgot it was Sunday night and danced like it was 3am. Just immense. Watch them become huge in 209.

Read the rest of this entry »

You may well have guessed that I love Idlewild. The Scottish rockers have been around for almost as many years as I have, and have just announced details of their seventh studio album to be released next summer hopefully.

Following in the footsteps of the likes of Bloc Party, Radiohead and others, they’re doing something a bit more unique and offering fans a chance to see behind the scenes of the recording of the album early next year. All you have to do is go over to their website and sign up and pay £16.50, for which you’ll get:

• A limited edition CD album (with free download version) in exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track. This will be shipped within weeks of completion & before any standard release.
• You can get your name to appear in the CD booklet with the album and on a roll-call on the web site.
• Access to download 15 free tracks from live recordings at the King Tuts “album by album” shows In December ‘08 & access to a members only section of the web site with album progress updates, exclusive photo and video content from the recording and preproduction process with diaries/blogs by individual band members and lots more.
• Signing up will also automatically enter you into draws for special prizes, which include:
  • Get two 5 night passes for the King Tuts “album by album” shows. (Closing date – December 10th, 2008)
  • Receive special prints of the album cover, signed by all the band.
  • Have your special edition album signed by the band.
  • Get a special set of screen printed posters for each night of the King Tuts shows.
  • Get admission for 2 to sound check at any choice of gig on a forthcoming tour with passes to remain in the venue for the show.
  • Stand on stage with Idlewild’s guitar tech for a prime view of the show at any choice of gig on our own tour dates (2 tickets included).

Sounds good? Well, if this is the future of the music business, then I’m all for it – it’s always fascinating to see how bands work behind the scenes. By paying a bit more for the album you’re paying money direct to the band and getting to see far more than you normally would.

I’ve really quite fallen in love with Idlewild recently, having seen them twice in the past two months (in Bristol and London). Now they’ve announced a five night retrospective of their career to date, playing five consecutive nights at the legendary Glasgow venue, King Tuts.

250 tickets per night are priced £15 or you can buy one of 50 wristbands/tickets for all 5 nights for £50!

Catch them at the following nights:

Wednesday 17th December – ‘Hope Is Important’ and Others
Thursday 18th December – ‘100 Broken Windows’
Friday 19th December – ‘The Remote Part’
Saturday 20th December – ‘Warnings/Promises’ and Acoustic set
Sunday 21st December – ‘Captain’ and ‘Make Another World’.

“We first played here about 10 years ago… and it’s just as hot as last time!” commented Idlewild’s Roddy Woomble mid-way through their sell-out set at Bristol’s Fleece. Hot wasn’t the word – crammed to the rafters, the tiny ancient pub has obviously seen some hot ‘n’ sweaty ones, but I’d imagine last night was right up with the sweatiest of them all.

Opening up the evening they did as they did in London: a short acoustic set, a quick break, and then a full electric set with lots of B-Sides and rareities. Perfect for the obsessive Idlewild fan, not so for those not so familiar with their rarer b-sides. A lot chattier than last time, Roddy took requests – a girl yelled for “Meet Me at the Harbour”, which they launched into instead of the setlisted “Gone too Long”

The intimate show served as a warm up for a festival the band are playing today in the South West, having been asked to play by the Levellers who organised it. Asking the crowd what goes on at a Levellers festival, he shrugged and said “I guess they drink a hell of a lot of cider!”.

The band were on fine form – as tight as ever, stopping mid-song and restarting in perfect unison, and managing to make old songs sound as fresh as anything a band newer than them have done in years. Roddy, seemingly at ease with their longevity explained how he’d just turned 32, and some of the songs had been around since he was just 17.

By the time they went off stage at 11:20 Idlewild had came, seen and conquered the south of England. When they’ll be back on tour is anybody’s guess, but we were just lucky to catch them at the top of their game.

Remember when going to a gig left you feeling dirty afterwards? The sweat dripping off of you, your glasses knocked from your face, beer thrown around, and stinking like a cigarette factory? Well, tonight featured a return to those times (minus the cigarette smell) when I went to see Idlewild at ULU in London.

Choosing to save us the (occasional) torture of a support band, they decided to support themselves, playing two sets, first of all an acoustic set, before coming back to play a full electric set after “a little break in the room back there”, in lead singer Roddy Woomble’s words.

Their first acoustic set featured such crowd pleasers as “American English”, “No Emotion” and “El Capitan” as Roddy and the rest of the band warmed up, however quickly we realised that they were on top of their game, and we were in for a classic main Idlewild set. 15 minutes later the Scotsmen ambled back on stage for a set which was heavily B-sides and rarities based, which was great for the hardcore fans and not so great for the casual fan that had come out for a greatest hits set.

However, we did get some classics such as “Little Discourage”, “Love Steals Us From Loneliness”, “Out of Routine” and “Century after Century” along with one of the highlights by far of the evening, “Roseability”. The chorus call and response, “Gertrude Stein said ‘that’s enough’ / I know that that’s not enough now,” featured all 800-odd of the crowd yelling along, and the first of many crowd surfers, as the band returned to their harder sound of the first few records, before the folkier tinges of recent works.

Leaving a lot sweatier, and feeling like we’d just been trampled by a herd of elephants, Idlewild managed to show us that, even though they’re approaching middle age, they really are one of Scotland’s greatest bands.

After the jump: setlist and more photos

Read the rest of this entry »

Idlewild have announced their first tour since last October, playing three tiny shows in early July. Hopefully they’ll add some more venues to the list shortly!

Tickets go on sale at 9am this morning, 18th April.

Wednesday 2nd July – Birmingham Glee Club
Thursday 3rd July – London ULU
Friday 4th July – Manchester Ruby Lounge

This year’s Lodestar festival has been cancelled.

It seems that like so many festivals they have been plagued by weather problems, and thus has fallen behind with the organisation.

The three day event on the first weekend of September (August 31st – September 2nd) was set to include Badly Drawn Boy, Maps, Idlewild, Pigeon Detectives and The Rakes amongst others.

The word is that the first Lodestar festival may well be held next Summer.

As I predicted yesterday, Idlewild have indeed announced a full October and early November tour.

Tickets are going on sale at varying points from now to Friday 3rd August, so be sure to keep checking Ticketweb, Ticketmaster and See tickets as some dates are bound to sell out very very quickly.

Tuesday 9th October – Liverpool Academy
Wednesday 10th October – Preston 53 Degrees
Thursday 11th October – Leicester The Venue
Saturday 13th October – Sheffield Leadmill
Tuesday 23rd October – Portsmouth Pyramid
Wednesday 24th October – Princess Pavillion
Thursday 25th October – Exeter Phoenis
Saturday 27th October – Nottingham Rescue Rooms
Sunday 28th October – Warwick University
Monday 29th October – Cambridge Junction
Tuesday 30th October – London Koko
Thursday 1st November – Dublin The Village
Friday 2nd November – Belfast Mandela Hall