Indie rockers, The Delgados, have announced that their first tour in 17 years will commence with a performance here in Brighton at the Concorde 2 on Friday 20th January 2023.
From Brighton they will then venture on to the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London for the following night, and from there will be rockin’ on up at the Academy 2 in Manchester (on 22nd January), then Sheffield Leadmill (on 24th), before concluding their jaunt on 25th January in Glasgow for a homecoming gig at the Barrowland Ballroom.
Back in 1994, Alun Woodward (vocals, guitar), Emma Pollock (vocals, guitar), Stewart Henderson (bass) and Paul Savage (drums), got it together in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, after several of them were sacked from another local band called Bubblegum. Naming themselves after the cyclist Pedro Delgado, the group recorded a series of singles in widely varying styles for over 10 years, They also put out five studio LPs and one live album that showed their collective strengths as vocalists, instrumentalists and songwriters, with ‘The Great Eastern’ (2000) being nominated for a Mercury Music Prize (losing out to Badly Drawn Boy). They began their own label, Chemikal Underground, to distribute their work (and that of other Scottish acts such as Arab Strap and Mogwai). In 2005 they decided to call it a day, but they have now announced their comeback!
DJ John Peel fans (like myself) will arguably be aware of The Delgados, especially as listeners voted their ‘Pull The Wires From The Wall’ track as No.1 in the 1998 Festive Fifty and ‘Everything Goes Around The Water’ also scraped into the Top 10. This accolade must have overjoyed the outfit as it meant that they had beaten other well known acts including Pulp, Belle & Sebastian, Jesus And Mary Chain, Boards Of Canada, and getting one over on Badly Drawn Boy.
John Peel had initially been alerted to the band with their very first release, ‘Monica Webster’, which he began to play in January 1995, and from then every new release was guaranteed airplay on his show. The Delgados recorded eight sessions (all of which were released on ‘The Complete BBC Sessions’ in 2006), of which John particularly commended them on the fifth, as all of the songs were cover versions. They had seven live sets aired on the show, with the first being on 13th May 1995 and featuring ‘Lazarwalker’, ‘Blackwell’, ‘I’ve Only Just Started To Breathe’ and ‘Primary Alternative’ and the last being on 2nd September 2004 and featuring ‘I Fought The Angels’, ‘Ballad Of Accounting’, ‘Is This All That I Came For?’ and ‘Everybody Come Down’.
Tickets for the Concorde 2 concert in Brighton can be purchased from the promoters Crosstown Concerts HERE or from the venue HERE.
Tour ticket information for the forthcoming tour and more about the band can be found at thedelgados.band
