When: 7.30pm on Wednesday 29 & Thursday 30 June 2022
Where: Gullivers, 109 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LW

UPDATE: The Wednesday show has now sold out – but tickets are still available for Thursday’s show – see below for links.

We’re excited to be hosting back-to-back nights of Darren Hayman playing songs from four classic Hefner albums!

Darren Hayman is a thoughtful, concise and detailed songwriter. He eschews the big, the bright and the loud for the small, twisted and lost. Throughout his prolific solo career he has taken a singular and erratic route through England’s tired and heartbroken underbelly.

For this back-to-back visit to Gullivers, Darren will play songs from four Hefner albums: Breaking God’s Heart and The Fidelity Wars on Wednesday 29 June, and We Love the City and Dead Media on Thursday 30 June.

Hefner’s first records attracted the attention of cult indie label Too Pure and the broadcasting legend John Peel. The band’s first album, Breaking God’s Heart, mixed raw, sexual words with religious imagery and earned the band a loyal, intelligent following in the UK, Europe and the USA. The second album, The Fidelity Wars, shifted the songwriting focus to the personal and remains a fan favourite.

Hefner’s third album, We Love the City, became the critical and commercial highlight of their short, intense career. By this time Hayman had started to develop a sharp, incisive voice. The song narratives now took place in the toilets and kitchens of everyday British homes. Hayman sang about the thread on skirt hems and the hairline cracks in the china as well as the tears on cheeks. Hefner’s fourth and final album, Dead Media, presented an erratic creative left turn. Largely leaving their guitars in their cases, the band made a bizarre, stuttering bleeping confection on ancient analogue synths.

WEDNESDAY 29 (Breaking God’s Heart and The Fidelity Wars): We’re sold out! But tickets are still available for Thursday’s show – see below.

Local support on Wednesday comes from Test Card Girl. Test Card Girl is a solo project by new Manchester indie singer-songwriter Catherine Burgis. Having grown increasingly frustrated with an admin-based existence, and wishing to conquer a life-long fear of singing in public, Catherine embarked on a country-wide tour as a musical comedian in 2018 complete with novelty miniature keyboard. Winning awards (North West Comedian of the Year, Frog and Bucket 2018, Funny Women Semi-Finalist 2019, Beat the Gong Winner, The Arc, Stockton 2019) and growing in confidence as a singer, she performed her first (and last) gig as solo synth-folk artist Test Card Girl in February 2020, with all subsequent gigs immediately being cancelled due to the dawning of a global pandemic.

With live performance not possible, Catherine turned her attention to recording and released her first single ‘Holds Me Down’ in 2020. The single was picked up by BBC 6Music, Radio X, Absolute Radio and XS Manchester and she was named Steve Lamacq’s BBC 6 Music ‘One to Watch’ in January 2021. Catherine was awarded an Arts Council grant to make a further 3 singles in 2021 and is currently working on her debut EP ‘Fly’ with producer Seadna McPhail at Airtight Studios, Manchester. The EP is due for release in Spring 2022 and will feature guest performances from drummer Andy Hargreaves (I Am Kloot) and bass player Nathan Sudders (Miles Kane, Guy Garvey, Nadine Shah). Test Card Girl’s music ranges from lo-fi bedroom pop to simple indiefolk songs, influenced in equal parts by the standard-issue musical taste of a 90’s Manchester teenager; an obsession with the MIDI sounds of childhood keyboards past and finger-picking folk songs of old. In January 2022 Catherine was announced as one of 10 Manchester International Festival MIF Sounds artists? and will be performing live throughout 2022 (dates TBC).

THURSDAY 30 (We Love the City and Dead Media): Buy tickets now. Tickets are also available from Dice.fm, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Local support on Thursday comes from Jonny Woodhead. Yorkshire boy by birth, Jonny Woodhead currently resides on the rainier side of the Pennines in the prized music city of Manchester. Following the completion of his study in filmmaking, the self-confessed serial dabbler now holds a firm footing within the city’s growing folk and singer-songwriter scene. Emerging from the most esteemed open mics and secret living room shows, Jonny shares his debut EP Words With The Weatherman, recorded during the dawn of 2016.

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