Self-titled King of the North, Bugzy Malone, has just revealed the dates for his upcoming tour at the end of the year – and there’ll be a special hometown show at Manchester’s AO Arena.
To mark the release of his latest album ‘The Resurrection’ which is out now, the Manchester rapper has announced a headline tour spanning eight dates from late November to early December 2021.
He’ll be kicking things off in Bristol on November 22 and will be visiting Birmingham, Newcastle and London, before finishing up in Manchester on Saturday 4 December.
It’ll be his first ever headline show at the arena.
Much of Bugzy’s new album is based around Bugzy’s near-fatal crash early last year – from which he has come back fighting.
ADVERTISEMENT
‘The Resurrection’ features singles such as ‘Salvador’, ‘Welcome to the Hood’ ft. Emeli Sande, ‘Notorious’ ft. Chip plus ‘M.E.N III’ which charted at number 18, giving him his highest single chart position to date.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CPG9d8bA7D-/
Bugzy is known for his powerful and personal wordplay and has fast become one of the most exciting artists in the rap and grime scene right now.
ADVERTISEMENT
But it’s not just music that he’s dabbling in.
This year started off well for the rapper, as he began the year shooting a second film with Guy Ritchie, alongside co-stars Jason Statham and Aubrey Plaza. And with the launch of his B Malone clothing line too, he’s been a busy man.
Tickets for the tour go on sale at 9am on Friday 4 June and can be found here.
ADVERTISEMENT
Stay up to date with Manchester music and events with The Manc Audio.
Gigs & Nightlife
Multi-genre American artist MGK is coming to Manchester
Danny Jones
Machine Gun Kelly, a.k.a. MGK, is coming to Manchester for his biggest show in this city to date, and tickets go on sale very soon.
Rumblings of the genre-hopping American hip-hop artist, singer, songwriter and pop-punk revivalist announcing a big slate of gigs already began circulating earlier this month, but now it’s official.
MGK – real name Colson Baker – has just announced his Co-op Live debut early next year, and he’s even bringing along fellow rapper Wiz Khalifa along with him on ‘The Lost Americana World Tour’.
We have a feeling this one is going to sell out quickly.
‼️ The Lost Americana World Tour ‼️ more countries and dates coming soon
The laundry list of live dates comes in support of his most recent record of the same name, lost americana, which just dropped back in August.
Featuring yet more genre-bending, the new MGK album sees him returning not only to the familiar well of rapping and radio-friendly rock vibes, but is also arguably his poppiest LP yet.
His latest material also sees the 35-year-old delivering perhaps some of his most traditional vocal performances ever, too, even sprinkling in plenty of country vibes amid the resurgent moment it’s having in the music industry.
In fact, if we were to compare him and the sound itself to anything, it’s very akin to Post Malone‘s increasingly fluid feel – especially on his recent country-pop outing, F-1 Trillion.
That being said, he’s still sprinkled in old-school boom bap chillers like his most recent single, ‘tell me what’s up’, which has already proved to be a crowd favourite.
You can see the music video down below.
As for ‘The Lost Americana World Tour’ itself, it’s an absolutely massive globetrotting trek across multiple continents and some of the biggest venues on the planet that begins later this year.
In total, MGK has confirmed a whopping 66 live shows already, before adding on Instagram: “Dates and countries still being added, don’t worry, but here’s part 1.”
So far, there are just two shows here in England, one being in London and the other at the Co-op Live arena on March 7, 2026, which will be far and away the biggest venue he has ever played in the region.
The pre-sale window begins next week on Monday, 22 September, and fans can sign up for early access via the mailing list on his website.
Meanwhile, general admission will be available to the public from the following Thursday (25 Sep) at 12 noon. You can get ready to grab your tickets for MGK in Manchester when they go live HERE.
We can’t wait for Colson to deliver these kinds of communal vibes amongst his biggest ever Manc crowd.
Review | Villanelle debut: Liam Gallagher’s son’s band release their first track – here’s our review
Danny Jones
Liam Gallagher’s son, Gene, and his band Villanelle, have officially released their debut single to the masses, and since we’re still very much immersing ourselves in everything even remotely to do with Oasis, we thought we’d give this first track a review.
Now, if you’re expecting a familiar Britpop vibe like his dad and uncle used to bash out back in the day, you’d be very wrong…
It’s one thing to settle into something similar to what you’ve grown up around and try to continue a lineage if you’re from a successful family – especially with a legacy as important and influential as the one left by Liam and Noel – but we’re glad to report they’ve done something pretty different.
24-year-old Gene Gallagher and his bandmates Ben Taylor (guitar), Jack Schiavo (bass), and Andrew Richmond (drums) haven’t just tried to do an impression of Oasis; instead, they’ve found their own sound, and while it does give somewhat of an old-school flavour, it’s not what we expected.
It takes literally milliseconds for you to click into realising the vibe they’re going for.
‘Hinge’ is a simplistic but hard-hitting, grungey and dark debut from Villanelle, who, despite having played a number of in-progress songs live over the last year or so, have only just dropped their first studio single.
In fact, they’ve actually taken the admittedly bizarre and unorthodox first steps of having already played live with Liam Gallagher on the Definitely Maybe 30th anniversary tour before they actually released anything people can easily listen to outside of their live performances.
Nevertheless, the young four-piece introduces Villanelle as the latest post-punk outfit amidst the ongoing revival of the classic rock genre.
That is to say that punk is a tried and true classic style of music, not that these lads are trying to sound like The Rolling Stones…
Anyway, we’re getting sidetracked: Villanelle draw plenty of influences from both original and contemporary examples of this sonic subculture, and while it isn’t explosive per se, ‘Hinge’ is short, direct and hits the same formulaic notes.
It’s also fair to say you can hear a bit of the recognisable LG whine in Gene’s vocals at times, too. Listen to it in full down below and see if you agree.
Even the basic found-footage style video fits into the same category.
To call it straightforward isn’t intended as any kind of a diss, by the way – some of our favourite tunes and best artists spearheading the renaissance of the punk scene write like this.
What we will say is that it looks like bloody good fun to both play and listen to in a small, sweaty room, with plenty of pits and people bouncing off the walls.
Gallagher Sr. might be surprised to see his son going for a slightly heavier, more hardcore route with his sound, but he can’t accuse him of forgetting his roots as the child of a ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Star.’
The boys are actually hitting the road this winter, including a date at The Castle Hotel in the Northern Quarter, if you fancy grabbing a ticket.
You can grab your tickets to see Villanelle on tour HERE, and in the meantime, let us know what you think of their debut track down in the comments.
Hannah Starkie -
1st June 2021 
