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Diary Dates
Gaz Brookfield – Thursday 5 October
The Musician
Anti-folk artist and winner of Acoustic Magazines’s UK singer-songwriter competition. His songs are instantly accessible, everyman tales of life, love and everything else in between. Played in a folk-ish style with occasional use of the guitar as a percussive tool, as well as some two handed venturing around the fretboard, Gaz’s simple yet poignant songwriting captures the imagination of the listener.
Uncle Frank – Friday 6 October
The Soundhouse
Multi-instrumentalists Frank Benbini (one third of Fun Lovin’ Criminals) and Naim Cortazzi from Leicester are the founding members of Uncle Frank. “Oh my, this is the blues as originally intended, James Brown and all the funkery that goes with that. Add in a dose of electro pulsation and you have something that sits easily in the here and now but also pulls from the glorious past.”
Vega – Thursday 12 October
The Musician
British melodic hard rock band whose eclectic, off-kilter style of AOR made them stand out from the crowd from the moment they started. They were embraced by an audience that they seemed keen to distance themselves from.
The Moderators – Saturday 14 October
O2 Academy Leicester
Leicester eight-piece covering Mod and Ska classics. They hare a mutual love of The Jam, Specials and Madness, wearing Fred Perry’s and riding their Scooters. Today they have become a live act that demands your attention and your dancing shoes. The Moderators thrive on raw energy and love nothing more than seeing their huge array of followers skanking, bouncing and sweating along with them at their shows.
Birds in Row – Monday 16 October
The Big Difference
Birds in Row is an experimental hardcore punk/metal trio who write punitive, exasperated tunes with equisitite, dark textures. Their members maintain a level of anonymity to pin the focus on the music itself rather than those who create it. Birds in Row is committed to a true DIY ethic, placing all their efforts into the creation of a deep fan-to-artist connection.
Henge – Thursday 19 October
O2 Academy Leicester
Extra-terrestrial joymongers – HENGE – have been delighting audiences in the UK and Europe since they landed on Planet Earth seven years ago. Their scintillating live performances earned them ‘Best Live Act’ at the Independent Festival Awards and they have since cemented their reputation with two acclaimed albums, numerous tours and regular main-stage festival appearances.
Jim Jones Allstars – Friday 20 October
The Musician
Front man Jim Jones’s distinctive recording history has spanned several incarnations including The Jim Jones Revue, Black Moses, Thee Hypnotics and The Righteous Mind. Now Jim has created a nine piece, blistering rhythm and blues meets rock n’ roll band!
Andrew Cushin – Thursday 26 October
O2 Academy Leicester
Andrew Cushin possesses a nuanced, multifaceted talent for songwriting. The words that he conjures are both immensely personal and reflective of modern social issues, but those serious themes are delivered through songs with huge, pints-in-the-air singalong appeal. It’s a talent that’s winning a growing army of admirers, most notably Noel Gallagher, who produced and performed on Andrew’s single ‘Where’s My Family Gone’.
Sleeper (unplugged) – Thursday 26 October
The Musician
Fronted by singer-turned-novelist Louise Wener, the band had eight UK top 40 singles between ’93-’97 including the breakthrough hit ‘Inbetweener’, accompanied by the classic supermarket promo video starring Dale Winton, and two top 10 singles with ‘Sale Of The Century’ and ‘Nice Guy Eddie’. They also covered Blondie’s ‘Atomic’ for the original Trainspotting film. As T2 hit cinema screens in 2017, Louise thought ‘what do I do now?’ and decided to reform the band.
Sunbirds – Friday 27 October
The Soundhouse
The Beautiful South’s Dave Hemingway is back and sounding better than ever. Together with erstwhile South colleague, guitarist/songwriter Phil Barton, new discovery singer/violinist Laura Wilcockson and top UK session drummer Marc Parnell, Dave has created Sunbirds. Although born and bred in England the band’s sound predominantly features the instrumentation of traditional American roots music combined with the occasional outburst of guitar heavy melody more associated with Seattle in the late 80s / early 90s.
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PREVIEW: Wheatus head to The Soundhouse
It’s hard to believe it’s now well over 20 years since Wheatus released their million-selling eponymously titled debut album as well as their still ubiquitous single “Teenage Dirtbag”. Yes, that’s right – “Dirtbag” is no longer a teenager. In honour of this milestone, Wheatus will release a new specially expanded 20-track edition of their now classic debut long-player ‘Wheatus’ on 1st December 2023.
And to further celebrate the debut album’s imminent expanded release, the much-loved New York act are on tour and they’re here in Leicester on Sunday 1 October. The show is now sold out (no surprise there) but they have just released a number of VIP packages, including access to the soundcheck and a meet & greets with the band. If you’re heading to the show on Sunday, you can book your package HERE.
Pandemics notwithstanding, the six-piece have kept busy these past few years with a seemingly endless run of shows across the globe, but this new autumn 2023 run of dates will be Wheatus’ first gigs on our shores in more than four years.
Commenting on the new UK & Irish tour, Wheatus frontman Brendan B Brown says, “We toured the UK, Ireland and Europe eighteen years in a row from 2001-2019, some years more than once. The pandemic has paused that tradition since 2020. This opportunity to return is more precious to us than all the other years combined and we’re gonna throw the kitchen sink at it”.
The brilliant promo video for “Teenage Dirtbag,” featuring clips of Mena Suvari & Jason Biggs from the 2000 teen rom-com movie ‘Loser’, is fast closing in on an incredible 250million views.
The fiercely independent New York act has now released six studio albums and two live albums across their career. Talking of the new 20-track expanded version of debut album ‘Wheatus’, Brendan B Brown says, “We found demos of ten more songs from throughout the band’s history that had such an album-one vibe that they never made it onto our more recent records. So now we’re giving them a proper chance to be heard. The new twenty-song expanded version of the album will feature the originally conceived tracklisting and sequence, plus the extra ten songs that have finally found a home on a record.”
The past twelve months have seen Wheatus explode back into the mainstream with the “Teenage Dirtbag photos” TikTok trend going hugely viral across social media, with more than two billion views in less than a month. The song has been shared and celebrated recently by Lil Nas X, Madonna, Paris Hilton, Lady Gaga, Chevy Chase, Jon Bon Jovi, Victoria Beckham, Alice Cooper, Millie Bobby Brown, Michelle Pfeiffer, Brooke Shields, Mark Ruffalo, Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera, Heidi Klum, Mark Ronson, LL Cool J, Tony Hawk, Sammy Hagar, Nick Kroll, Lupita Nyong’o, Machine Gun Kelly, Anderson Paak, Jessica Alba, Mick Fleetwood, Sheryl Crow, Chris Pratt and Jamie Lee Curtis, amongst countless others all pushing the hashtag #teenagedirtbag
Against all odds, this newfound frenzy around the now 23-year-old anthem has led the band to recently perform on some of the most prestigious stages of their career: they’ve supported Everclear, Hoobastank, Living Colour, Phantom Planet, The Wallflowers, Eve 6 and Dashboard Confessional at various dates around the United States, as well as performing at high-profile American music festivals such as Audacy Beach Festival (also featuring Muse, Jack White, The 1975, Machine Gun Kelly, etc.), Adjacent Festival (also featuring Blink-182, Coheed & Cambria, Turnstile, Jimmy Eat World, with Wheatus taking the stage just before Paramore), and the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball (where Brendan sang “Teenage Dirtbag” at Madison Square Garden alongside rising pop star Jax).
Wheatus were also the surprise musical guests on the 2023 series finale of ITV’s Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway – filmed live at Universal Studios Orlando & watched by millions.
And if all that wasn’t enough, a brand new remix of “Teenage Dirtbag” was used as part of an enormous marketing campaign to promote Season 2 of the hugely popular Disney Freeform/Hulu series ‘Cruel Summer.’
As the band rightly conclude, “Teenage years may be fleeting, but it seems ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ is for life!”
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WEEKLY PLAYLIST
On this week’s playlist have a listen to some of the acts that you can catch live in Leicester over the coming weeks. Like what you hear? Why not book some tickets.
Have a listen and get in touch to tell us which tracks you’re loving.