Shame have announced their biggest UK tour to date for the end of this year, with the set of dates concluding with their biggest headline show to date at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town.
The Londoners will begin their November tour at Bristol’s SWX on 15 November, with the lengthy tour set to follow an entirely sold-out run of dates this April, which will see them taking Songs of Praise all around the UK.
Shame’s exhilarating debut album stormed the UK Top 40 and received a wonderful critical reception, read our review here.
Front-man Charlie Steen spoke to NME last week after the passing of the influential Mark E. Smith, he said: “You’ll always remember where you were when Mark E. Smith died. I was on the toilet in New Cross. It was weird, because I was listening to ‘Blindness’ [from The Fall’s 2005 album ‘Heads Roll’] at the time. The influence that The Fall has had over music is too much to count, really. I was 17 when I first heard ‘The N.W.R.A.’ on the ‘Grotesque’ album; I used to listen to it on the bus to and from sixth form every day.”
Steen added: “Two years ago, we supported The Fall at The Garage [in north London]. We haven’t had many moments of realisation or disbelief, but that was very much one of them because that was a period where I was listening to the Fall excessively. It was a pretty shit Fall gig, to be honest, but that didn’t matter to us. I think that everyone admired – whether it was a good thing or a bad thing – that that Mark E. Smith acted in the same way offstage that he did onstage. He was as drunk as you thought he was going to be, and he sung half of it from his dressing room.”
Shame will play:
15 Nov – Bristol, UK – SWX
16 Nov – Portsmouth, UK – Pyramids
17 Nov – Leicester, UK – O₂ Academy
18 Nov – Sheffield, UK – Leadmill
20 Nov – Leeds University Union, UK – LUU Stylus
22 Nov – Manchester, UK – O₂ Ritz
23 Nov – Newcastle, UK – Newcastle University
24 Nov – Glasgow, UK – O₂ ABC
26 Nov – Norwich, UK – Waterfront
27 Nov – Oxford, UK – O₂ Academy
28 Nov – Birmingham, UK – O₂ Institute
30 Nov – London, UK – O₂ Forum Kentish Town
