James Blunt has announced a massive gig here in Manchester at the AO Arena.
The former British Army officer-turned-singer-songwriter announced news of his European tour this morning, in support of his upcoming album.
Who We Used To Be will be James Blunt’s seventh album and his first release since 2019.
His 2024 tour will take him to cities including Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and Newcastle, as well as two shows at the iconic Royal Albert Hall in London.
After his AO Arena gig on 12 April, he’ll finish the tour with final shows in Cardiff and Bournemouth.
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The singer’s debut album Back to Bedlam was released way back in 2004 and went on to be 11x Platinum certified, spawning hit singles like High, Goodbye My Lover, and You’re Beautiful.
And even if you’d rather listen to nails on a chalkboard for the rest of eternity than hear You’re Beautiful one more time, James Blunt has become a bit of a national treasure – especially thanks to his sharp wit and no-nonsense banter on social media.
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🆕 With his upcoming album #WhoWeUsedToBe on the way this October, @JamesBlunt also announces a brand new tour – and he's coming to the @AOArena!
For example, earlier this year, he tweeted: “OTD in 2006, You’re Beautiful hit Number 1 in the US, and i think we can all agree that the world has gone to sh*t since.”
You can pre-order Who We Used To Be for access to a ticket pre-sale.
General tickets go on sale on Friday 1 September at 10am through See Tickets.
Five Manchester artists we’ve been listening to this month | April 2024
Danny Jones
Oh yes, it’s that time again – time for our favourite thing: sharing a bunch of great tunes with our mates, i.e. you lot and, of course, they all happen to artists from the wonderful world that is the Manchester music scene.
Be it a band, solo artist or any other configuration you like, we spend a good chunk of our time every month digging through the best stuff coming out of this city and the surrounding boroughs.
Luckily, there’s so much talent around these parts that we never struggle for choice, the only tough bit is singling out a mere handful every few weeks.
It’s tough work, we know, but we keep calm and carry on, for you. You’re welcome. Anyway, enough of that, let’s get stuck into the Manchester artists who’ve released new music or those who’ve simply stood out to us of late.
Five Manc bands and solo artists on our radar recently
1. Antony Szmierek
First up is the local king of spoken word and multi-talented Antony Szmierek from Hyde, whose melodic poetry spans multiple genres from hip-hop and electronic to alternative and even indie notes here and there, but always comes back to one core linchpin: the lyrics.
Bursting onto the scene with his debut EP, Poems To Dance To, back in 2023 – a title that still pretty much sums up his whole style – we’ve got a lot of love for the teacher who’s split his time between mentoring children with special needs and chasing his dream. Now he gets to go full speed on the latter.
The obvious love for literature runs throughout all of his material but it’s always delivered in such an effortlessly relatable, casual and almost conversational manner, as if you’re just sat in listening to his stream of consciousness. ‘Heaven Is Other People’, ‘The Words to Auld Lang Syne’ and ‘Rounders’ are our entry points, but you’ll get a little something different from all of them – and you’ll definitely dance.
Over to Stockport next and no, we won’t be listening to any ‘it’s Cheshire nonsense’ today because we firmly want to put The Rolling People in our camp as there’s something just so familiar about them even though they’ve only just started putting out music.
The Stopfordian four-piece delivers good defiant British rock with very few frills, often fast-paced and Oasis-sounding in riffs, whilst other times reminding us of Shed Seven and drawing other contemporary comparisons such as The Crooks or resembling Tom Concannon of The Stanleys in vocals only just a touch gruffer.
These lads are still only in college but given how big they sound already, we’re expecting great things from them. For your first listen, there isn’t tonnes to get through but we’d go for ‘Grateful For Nothing’, ‘I’ll Be There’ and their latest single which has seen some love on Radio X, ‘Before It’s Gone’.
They also appeared on one of StreamGM’s most recent episodes of Spill The Sound.
3. Pip Millett
Another big genre swing now and we’re going to the R&B meets funk and soul stylings of the ever-so-smooth Pip Millett, who might just be one of our favourite artists in Manchester at the minute, let alone outright vocalists.
Having hit another boom following her most recent COLOURS performance, we do not forgive if you’re only coming across her (tut-tut) but she’s been pretty prolific when it comes to releasing music ever since 2018 and has already collaborated with Maverick Sabre, Chase and Status, Ghetts and more.
We reckon you won’t find many better singers in Greater Manchester right now and if you enjoy female artists like Jorja Smith, Joy Crookes and Miraa May, you’ll love ‘r Pip. Start with ‘Heavenly Mother’, ‘June’ ‘Slow’ and go from there. We truly think she’s going full global soon enough so enjoy here whilst she’s still kind of our little secret.
Back to the guitar-driven stuff now and another solo artist who’s been putting in the hard yards for some time now but is finally starting to reap the rewards. It’s everyone’s favourite curly-haired busker, Alex Spencer.
The young lad from Droylsden has gradually gone from chatting with us lot on Market Street and playing City Square at the Etihad before games to now playing for the players themselves, supporting the likes of fellow Manc rising star Seb Lowe on tour and booking his biggest headline shows yet.
He’s having quite the journey for someone who only just finished his GCSEs back in June 2023 and now that he’s signed to the same label as The Lottery Winners and The Coral, he can really push on. ‘Do What I Wanna’ and ‘Love And Let Go’ are probably his most well-rounded tracks, but we’ve still got a soft spot for his debut ‘A Night To Waste’ as we know the graft that went into getting to that point.
THE LOVE FOR FEAR WILL KILL THE FUTURE HAS BEEN CRAZYY! Thankyou so much❤️🩶🔥
Here’s the lyric video for it and its finally on YouTube for everyone asking!
Now to our final act and we have only two moods left: head-bobbing while our hair drapes to the ground or lying up on our backs as we stare up at a starry sky. That’s our best description of how the shoegaze approach of Manchester alt-rock outfit cruush makes us feel.
That new wave space in music can sometimes be a hard-to-define corner of modern music and that’s often why we love it so much but, in the case of this fuzzy-sounding local foursome, those distorted guitars and and floating vocals are textbook.
You get notes of everything from Wolf Alice and Slowdive to My Bloody Valentine and even Drop Nineteens if the lead singer was a girl. They’re everything you want from modern shoegaze and whether it’s ‘Ladybird Song’, ‘Stick in the Mud’ or ‘All My Plants Are Dead’, they never deviate too far from a winning formula we know and love.
Aww, and that’s all she wrote for another month. It always goes so quick.
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We know you’re gutted, we are too but don’t worry, the thing about these regular series and having such a rich pool to fish from is that we’ll be back with more up-and-coming Manchester artists come the end of May – god, isn’t finding new music just the best?
Keep soaking in those tunes, folks, and be sure to let us know who you’ve been enjoying lately in the comments. We thank you in advance.
Oh, and of course, if you haven’t caught up on our picks from last month, look no further.
Featured Images — Pip Millett (via Facebook)/cruush (via IG)/Press Image
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Co-op Live assures fans arena WILL open this week in time for Olivia Rodrigo and other gigs
Daisy Jackson
Manchester’s huge new arena the Co-op Live has assured fans that it will definitely, actually, for sure open this week.
The staggering new music venue beside the Etihad Stadium has been hit by a couple of high-profile delays in the last fortnight.
Although a test event with Rick Astley went ahead on 21 April, giving a small audience a glimpse inside the state-of-the-art arena, the brakes were slammed on soon afterwards.
Co-op Live pushed its opening date back while it ironed out some kinks, namely ‘power supply issues’, and underwent rigorous testing to ‘run all shows safely’.
That meant Peter Kay was rescheduled to 29 and 30 April… but then got postponed again, along with The Black Keys, who were meant to perform last weekend.
All the delays have left fans panicking that their shows will also be delayed, with some huge shows like Olivia Rodrigo, Take That, and Liam Gallagher lined up in the coming weeks and months.
But Co-op Live has now issued a statement reassuring gig-goers that they are full steam ahead and ready to open as planned this week.
The first act to perform here officially will now be A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie on 1 May (not quite as local a name as they were gunning for, but we move).
He’ll be followed by Olivia Rodrigo and her Guts Tour, who will perform two sold-out gigs on 3 and 4 May.
Olivia Rodrigo has announced a Manchester gig at Co-op Live. Credit: Nick WalkerKeane – Photography by ALEX LAKE insta @twoshortdays WWW.TWOSHORTDAYS.COMOlivia Rodrigo and Keane will both play Co-op Live in Manchester this week when it finally opens
Then Keane will play the Co-op Live on 5 May to mark 20 years since the release of Hopes and Fears.
Co-op Live posted: “Let’s do this! Less than 48 hours until we kick off our full opening season.
“Our scheduled shows with @aboogievsartist, @oliviarodrigo and @keaneofficial are going ahead.
“Ticket holders can expect an email with everything they need to know about this week’s events to land in your inboxes tomorrow!”
Fans have breathed a sigh of relief at the news, with one person writing: “YAY THANK GOD OMG THIS IS AMAZING WAS LITERALLY HAVJNG A MENTAL BREAKDOWN BOUT OLIVIA BEING CANCELLED.”
Another commented: “THANK GOD!!! 4th mayyyy.”
Someone else posted: “IM SO HAPPY AHHHHHH I’VE BEEN NERVOUS ALL WEEK BUT NOW I KNOW ITS GONNA BE FINE AHHH.”
Olivia Rodrigo fans are BIG believers in an all-caps comment, clearly.
Co-op Live will open in Manchester on Wednesday 1 May.
It’s going to be worth the wait, we’re pretty sure…
Daisy Jackson -
23rd August 2023 
