When: 7.30pm on Friday 27 September 2013
Where: Soup Kitchen, 31-33 Spear Street, Manchester M1 1DF

We’re excited to be welcoming back Hey! Manchester favourites The Wave Pictures – this time, to Soup Kitchen.

Last year, The Wave Pictures spent six weeks driving around America in a small van on tour with Allo Darlin‘. The result of this trip is their fifth studio album – the double album City Forgiveness, released on Moshi Moshi on 21 October.

‘We visited Hank Williams’ house and Billy The Kid’s grave, watched the Golden Gate bridge disappear into the clouds, and had our frisbee confiscated by a cop,’ says vocalist and lyricist Dave Tattersall. ‘We played some great shows together, and we became good friends, and we drove and we drove and we drove and we drove.’

Whilst they drove Tattersall scribbled in a notebook – ‘anything that popped into my head’ – and on his return found ‘a few hundred crumpled well-travelled pages in at the bottom of my bag’. These crumpled notes formed the basis of City Forgiveness and, in Wave Pictures typically prolific style, Tattersall wrote 20 songs in ‘a very jet-lagged and confused week’.

They clearly had a double album on their hands; not a concept album about America so much as a testament to the way that travel excites the imagination. The title came to Tattersall in a dream and reminds him of City Lights – the Charlie Chaplin movie and the San Francisco bookshop that published Allen Ginsberg’s Howl.

The Wave Pictures took a trip to Toe Rag Studios to record this exclusive footage of The Woods, taken from City Forgiveness. The song, typical of Tattersall’s wry observational style, is inspired by myriad touring experiences – both good and bad – including visiting the Buddy Holly museum, playing pool with locals, sleeping on mattresses infested with the cocoons of black widow spiders.

Support comes from Kiran Leonard, a mercurially talented 17-year-old musician from Oldham. His debut album Bowler Hat Soup is set to be released on Hand Of Glory in 2013 as a limited run of 300 vinyl copies. He’s featured in the Guardian’s New Band a Day column and received regular BBC 6music radio play. Listen to his song Dear Lincoln on Pitchfork here.

Buy tickets now with no booking fee. Tickets are also available from Common (no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketabc.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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