When: 7.30pm on Monday 29 May 2017
Where: The Eagle Inn, 19 Collier Street, Salford, M3 7DW

We’re delighted to be working with Tom Williams again – this time, with his band, at the Eagle Inn!

Following the release of the BBC 6 Music-playlisted single Everyone Needs A Home, Tom Williams, formerly helmsman of Tom Williams & The Boat, is heading off on a four date tour of the UK this May.

In conjunction with this announcement, Tom has also revealed a captivating acoustic session of the single that perfectly highlights the quality of both the song writing and lyricism of the track.

The single, with its intense, soaring strings and Williams’ unmistakeable vocal is an exciting taste of what is to come from the new album. Demonstrative of a new, more refined approach to song writing and with the influences of 70s American rock echoing throughout, the track was written in December 2015 and is an angry and impassioned response to the global refugee crisis and the rise of right wing populism in the UK, as Williams explains:

‘The full horror of the refugee crisis was fully unfolded on all our screens. Friends of mine who run the charity The Worldwide Tribe were in The Jungle, handing out food, clothing and supplies. We were moving house ourselves and I was in a back room surrounded by boxes piled high all around me. The words are simultaneously aggressive but also defeatist. The song is plea for more “We” and less “Me”.’

‘A blistering rock return’ – Clash

Special guest is Sam Airey. Like many other songwriters, when pressed, Sam Airey finds his own music a particularly difficult thing to define. For Sam, his writing is a vehicle that often serves to document darkness, but predominantly is also concerned with finding beauty, however hard that may be. A multi-instrumentalist, his songwriting process is personal (perhaps sacred), often cathartic but rarely a collaborative experience. However in terms of recording and performance, Sam has very much an open-door policy, inviting friends to join him wherever and whenever possible.

While Sam may claim otherwise, his music feels inextricably bound in the concept of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh-language word for which there is no direct translation. This idea is something that constantly and perhaps subconsciously informs and underlies his work; a sense of nostalgia, homesickness tinged with grief, and a longing for the past – maybe more specifically his own past and upbringing on Anglesey, an island off the north-west coast of Wales. However, Sam would argue his music rarely exists in just one place, whether in a geographical or musical sense. It is both stark and expansive, something he hopes is also reflected in the live show when joined by a full band, while still retaining the pin-drop reverie that his solo performances have been credited with.

Buy tickets now. Tickets are available from Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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