BBC News
By Mark Savage
image copyrightGetty Images
image captionRag n Bone Man played three small, socially-distanced shows last week to test the waters
Some of music s biggest stars will squeeze into the UK s smallest venues this summer, in an attempt to revive the grassroots music scene.
Sir Tom Jones will play the 800-seat Cambridge Junction, while Rag n Bone Man will entertain 250 fans in the Tunbridge Wells Forum.
It comes after 18 months in the which the live music industry essentially shut down due to Covid-19.
Sir Tom said supporting small, local venues makes all the difference . Musicians can record in their bedrooms, but they can t learn to perform in public without a place to play, he added.
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A.A. Williams will hit the road in September and October for her first-ever UK headline tour.
Words: Emily Carter
Photo: Thomas Williams
The musician and her band will be hitting the road in September and October for a 13-date run, including a stop at London’s Bush Hall to play Songs From Isolation in full. Elsewhere, she’ll be unveiling material from her 2020 Forever Blue debut, and rounding off the tour by supporting Lost Horizons at the Scala in the capital.
Speaking to Kerrang! earlier this year about the prospect of live music returning after the pandemic, A.A. Williams enthused: “Fast-forward an indefinite amount of time, when we’re all allowed to be in a field and we’re allowed to get drunk, eat falafel and get covered in mud – it’s going to be glorious. I still don’t know when that’s going to actually happen. But it’s going to be great when we get there.” Hell yes, it is.
All I want to do is devour music.
“I value my solitude, especially when writing music, the process is a vulnerable thing for me”, says
Leon Vynehall from his Tottenham studio. Characterised by the British producer as “sauna-like”, he swivels around the room in his office chair to show it off, revealing keyboards and synths stacked up against the wall, a suit jacket hung up casually on the wall and a bookcase filled with resources of any kind. He’s operated there since last October after moving from Shoreditch, and it seems to have turned from a studio into an obsessive workspace and part living space. It was the room that saw him finish up his second full-length album, Rare, Forever , which sees the light of day soon on Ninja Tune.