09 Jun John Grant announces news of two new UK live dates in June 2022
With his much-anticipated new album Boy From Michigan due for release 25th June via Bella Union, John Grant today announces news of two new UK live dates in June 2022 to follow his Autumn tour this year, performing at both the O2 Shepherds Bush Empire in London and the Albert Hall in Manchester. Upcoming UK / Ireland live dates below:
Saturday 4th September – Halifax – The Piece Hall **(SOLD-OUT!)**
2nd-5th September – Salisbury – End Of The Road festival
Monday 6th September – London – Alexandra Palace Theatre
Tuesday 7th September – London – Alexandra Palace Theatre **(SOLD-OUT!)**
Thursday 9th September – Glasgow – Barrowland Ballroom
Friday 10th September – Gateshead – Sage Gateshead
Saturday 11th September – Liverpool – Grand Central Hall
Tuesday 14th September – Sheffield – Octagon Centre
Wednesday 15th September – Nottingham – Rock City
Friday 17th September – Bexhill – De La Warr Pavilion **(SOLD-OUT!)**
Thursday 30th September – Cambridge – Junction
Friday 1st October – Coventry – Warwick Arts Centre
Saturday 2nd October – Bath – The Forum
Sunday 3rd October – Manchester – RNCM Theatre **(SOLD-OUT!)**
Tuesday 5th October – Cardiff – New Theatre **(SOLD-OUT!)**
Thursday 7th October – Belfast – St Anne’s Cathedral
Saturday 9th October – Dublin – National Concert Hall **(SOLD-OUT!)**
Tuesday 12th October – Cork – Live at St Luke’s
Wednesday 13th October – Cork – Live at St Luke’s **(SOLD-OUT!)**
Friday 15th October – Letterkenny – An Grianan Theatre
Saturday 16th October – Kilkenny – St Canice’s Cathedral
2022:
Thursday 16th June 2022 – London – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire
Saturday 18th June 2022 – Manchester – Albert Hall*
*tickets go onsale Fri 11 June at 09:00 via www.gigsandtours.com
Somewhere in the last decade, John Grant established himself as one of the great musical chroniclers of the American Dream, angled mostly from its flipside. What if everything you were promised, if you worked hard, loved hard, played and prayed hard, it all turned to ash? Grant lays it all out for careful cross-examination in his most autobiographical work to date. In a decade of making records by himself, he has playfully experimented with mood, texture and sound. At one end of his musical rainbow, he is the battle-scarred piano-man, at the other, a robust electronic auteur. Boy from Michigan seamlessly marries both.
Boy from Michigan sets out its stall early in order to fan his lyrical deck wider. Grant knows America well enough to document it in microscopic, painterly detail. The brittle intensity of the early life experiences of a middle-aged man twist stealthily into a broad metaphor for the state of the nation. “I guess I’m just thinking about where I came from,” he notes, “and what I went into.”
With longtime friend Cate Le Bon in the production chair, Grant has maximized the emotional impact of the melodies, stripping the noise of vaudeville and mood-enhancing a fruitful, spare, strangely orchestrated new world for him to live in. A clarinet forms the bedrock of a song. There is a saxophone solo. The record swings between ambient and progressive, calm and livid.
“Cate and I are both very strong-willed people”, says Grant. “Making a record is hard on a good day. The mounting stress of the US election and the pandemic really started to get to us by late July and August last year. It was at times a very stressful process under the circumstances, but one which was also full of many incredible and joyful moments.”
