Music Venue Trust and the National Lottery announce 150 Eurovision Legacy shows across the UK to support venues
The Music Venue Trust and the National Lottery have announced 150 Eurovision Legacy shows across the UK.
The programme was launched with a free concert for 15,000 people in the Eurovision Village on Wednesday (May 10th). It also follows the Liverpool instalment of the National Lottery’s United By Music Tour this week. It saw some of the city’s most prominent artists, including Miles Kane, The Lightning Seeds, The Coral, and The Mysterines playing at local venues across the seven days to support the live music sector.
Kicking off in mid-June, the United By Music Tour will see established and new artists perform at over 130 locations. To highlight the importance of grassroots music venues, Metronomy, Blossoms, and Cat Burns will play one-off shows to highlight the significance of the country’s grassroots music venues.
“Without grassroots venues there would’ve been nowhere for us to perform, grow and develop as a live act,” Blossoms told NME. “The future of live music relies on every single small venue across the country and we’re really pleased to be able to show our support for all of them by playing this show at the Parish in Huddersfield”.
The tour also features the likes of Sleeper, Opus Kink, Prima Queen, Luke La Volpe and more to be announced, and will support music venues in the wake of the pandemic, rising inflation and operating costs.
Sleeper will play 12 shows as part of the tour. Frontwoman Louise Wener explained: “All those amazing grassroots venues allowed Sleeper to grow. Touring the country, crowds right in front of our faces, it’s how we learned to be a live band. They’re part of our history. Part of every great band’s history. You can’t have one without the other. There’s nothing like the intimacy and buzz you get in a smaller venue. Reconnecting with clubs we played coming up in the 90s is exciting. Supporting them now feels more important than it’s ever been.”
CEO of Music Venue Trust, Mark Dayvd, said: “Following the success of the Liverpool Tour, which saw us host a week-long series of music gigs across the city, we are delighted to be partnering with The National Lottery again to extend the celebrations to the rest of the UK. Supporting grassroots music venues has never been more important and we’re delighted to be using venues across the country to highlight new and established artists the world will come to know and love.”
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