When: 7.30pm on Sunday 16 June 2024
Where: Night & Day Cafe, 26 Oldham St, Manchester, M1 1JN

We’re delighted to be welcoming Paisley Underground legends Rain Parade to Manchester!

Rain Parade are set to return with their first UK and European dates since disbanding in 1986, hitting nine countries including a stop-off in Manchester at Night & Day Cafe.

Rain Parade are a band founded in Los Angeles, California in 1981 that quickly gained notoriety as a leading member of LA’s fabled Paisley Underground music scene. The band’s signature sound combines hypnotic, melodic songwriting and 60s psychedelia-inspired instrumentation — chiming guitars, eastern-inflected motifs, multi-part vocal harmonies — with 70s punk influences and a darker lyrical approach fully informed by late 20th and early 21st century themes.

The Rain Parade’s debut album, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, (Enigma Records US/Demon Records UK), featuring the songwriting, vocal, and instrumental talents of founding members Matt Piucci, Steven Roback, and David Roback in equal measure, was released in 1983 and is internationally recognised as a masterpiece. Rain Parade’s second album, Explosions In The Glass Palace (Enigma Records/US, Demon Records/UK), recorded after David Roback’s departure, received the same high praise as their debut, with the band’s reputation growing ever since.

Sid Griffin, leader of The Long Ryders has said: “We were in the Paisley Underground with Rain Parade back in the 1980s… Explosions In The Glass Palace is and will forever be the BEST recording from a Paisley Underground band, be it us, The Dream Syndicate, The Bangles, The Three O’Clock or whomever.”

Both records directly influenced bands such as My Bloody Valentine, Ride, The Stone Rose, Teenage Fanclub, Charlatans and naturally Creation boss Alan McGee. And Rain Parade songs have been covered by The Bluetones, Buffalo Tom, Bangles and a host of others. During the mid 80s, the band toured the UK and Europe extensively, and made multiple appearances on the BBC Whistle Test TV shows. “Rain Parade was the one that changed me like an explosion in my mind, I saw them perform ‘No Easy Way Down’ on TV, and it was like, ‘Here is something I can fully get behind.’ It’s just incredible, and I have to say would have been pretty influential on the early Ride sound for sure” Andy Bell of Ride

Guitarist John Thoman joined Piucci and Roback in 1984 and went on to record on the band’s third and fourth LPs, Crashing Dream and Beyond The Sunset – Live in Japan (Island Records 1985/86) before the band broke up the following year.

Since then, the band’s reputation and diehard following has only grown, which led them to reuniting in the US for several well-received one-off shows in California, Atlanta, and Austin, and eventually recording 3 songs for the 3×4 album (Yep Roc 2018) with their friends The Bangles, The Dream Syndicate and The Three O’Clock. And most recently recording this year’s new album, Last Rays Of A Dying Sun, which manages to sound both like a lost classic and the groundbreaking work of unknown new artist, emerging from their secret lair with a record ready to change the world. As MOJO puts it, “there’s little rain on their new parade.”

Wrapping sweet nuggets of pop confection in swirling clouds of interstellar psychedelia, Last Rays Of A Dying Sun is a record at once eminently engaging and delightfully ornate. Everything old is new again, and it’s very easy to see the line that runs from the Summer of Love and the chiming tones of Jangle Pop to mid-eighties SoCal Paisley Underground of which Rain Parade was a pivotal component, through to the late-90’s Elephant 6 Collective, straight to the neo-psych indie rock of today.

Last Rays Of A Dying Sun features the original 80s members Piucci, Roback and Thoman alongside guitarist Derek See (the Gentle Cycle / Dean & Britta (Galaxy 500) / Chocolate Watchband), drummer Stephan Junca (The Hellenes, Billy Talbot, Boatclub), with vocalists Debbi and Vicki Peterson (The Bangles). Last Rays Of A Dying Sun is out on Flatiron Recordings, on their imprint Label 51. Flatiron Recordings.

Tour support comes from Ella Raphael. Ella Raphael is blessed with an amazing voice; a woozy, bluesy, euphoric sound that’s filled with warmth and emotion. Brought up on Elvis, Ella Fitzgerald and Edith Piaf her travels in the UK, US, Australia and Spain have refined that eclectic mix, adding The Shirelles, Julee Cruise, Love, Serge Gainsbourg, Karen Dalton (to whom her lilting vocal occasionally recalls), ESG, Broadcast, Vashti Bunyan, Catherine Ribeiro and Alpes, the original masters of Tropicalia, exotic 50s guitars and the more esoteric sounds of The Beatles.

This show is a co-promotion with Please Please You and Brudenell Presents.

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