When: 7pm on Saturday 4 October 2014
Where: Gorilla, 54-56 Whitworth Street West, Manchester M1 5WW
We’re delighted to once again be working with Hey! Manchester favourites The Travelling Band.
Manchester’s finest folk-rock superhumans The Travelling Band have won hearts and minds wherever they’ve found themselves, combining the strut of refried Southern country with the One Foot On The Monitor mayhem of the E Street Band. With smatterings of McCartney (the beard years) and Crosby Still & Nash million-part harmonies, TTB have become firm favourites for people with ears and good hearts.
Fans include 6 Music’s Marc Riley (who loves their ‘shimmering blend of cosmiccountrypop’) and Michael Eavis (who was taken back to his ‘musical roots’ with ‘marvellous music to savour’), who have lapped up the band’s headynufolk. On the back of LPs like 2008’s Under the Pavement and 2011’s Screaming is Something, it isn’t at all surprising. Whether they’re burrowing away in a recording den on the Isle of Mull, packing out rapturous shows, or kicking off impromptu jam sessions in the middle of a field, The Travelling Band aren’t messing around – music is what makes their blood move.
Now, readying their latest offering, The Big Defreeze – produced by Iestyn Polson (Patti Smith, David Bowie and more) at the world famous Church Studios in Crouch End, TTB find themselves with their paws firmly on their roots, but growing upwards and outwards too. Never ones to sit still, 2014 could well be the year that sees The Travelling Band really cement their place as the true champions of blissful cosmicpop. Great on record and outstanding onstage, if you haven’t got down with The Travelling Band yet, now is the time, before they disappear onto much larger stages.
Fans of Calexico, Iron & Wine, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Frightened Rabbit and Elbow should apply here, for The Travelling Band are the kings of North Country & Western music.
‘It all here, passionate yet delicate vocals, deep forceful drumming, jangly guitar, fluctuating stings, everything you could ask for from a song that oozes summer’ – The 405
‘The Travelling Band blur the folk/rock boundaries, delicately intertwining sensitive lyrics with accomplished folk vocals and jangly instrumental accompaniments to form a tapestry of glittering whimsy’ – The Sun
Special guests for this show are Rook and The Ravens. Having converged in Manchester in 2007, Rook and The Ravens have been making astute alternative rock music with pop sensibilities ever since. Informed by Radiohead, Teenage Fanclub and The Smiths as much as Crosby Stills and Nash, Tom Petty and Neil Young, they set about finding an identity amongst the lyrical complexity they loved and the power pop, harmony led delivery they craved. Fresh from a lengthy, triumphant, 28-date initial tour of the USA, Rook and The Ravens are looking to keep up momentum throughout Autumn 2014 and beyond.
Buy tickets now. Tickets are available from Common (no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.