Simple Minds announce Nottingham date

To celebrate the album release of Simple Minds Acoustic, the Scottish veterans will be taking to the road to perform their career spanning collection of songs acoustically for the very first time in May and June 2017 and will be joined by special guest The Anchoress.

This tour includes a visit to Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall on May 26.

This release and tour follows several years in which the band has gone from strength-to-strength, becoming more relevant than ever. Their 2014 album Big Music received across the board praise, with MOJO magazine declaring it “their best album in 30 years”.

The band began 2016 by putting together an acoustic set for the Zermatt Unplugged Festival in the Swiss Alps. Having spent weeks working on meticulously layered acoustic arrangements of their best-loved songs for that 90-minute performance, they began hatching plans to record them.

With Jim and Charlie augmented by regular bassist Ged Grimes, backing vocalist Sarah Brown, acoustic guitarist Gordy Goudie and percussionist Cherisse Osei, they temporarily halted the recording of the forthcoming sequel to BIG MUSIC – an album that is ‘anything but acoustic’ – and gave their complete commitment to an all-encompassing acoustic project. The recorded versions stick to many of the ideas forged for that Swiss show, with the synthetic sounds of old replaced with warmer effects.

As a group who formed in the punk era and found their mojo through a shared love of Bowie, Kraftwerk and electronic dance, Simple Minds are not natural acoustic adventurers, but they have done a remarkable job here, adding fresh nuance to brilliant songs without trampling on sacred memories.

Jim Kerr said: “The concert stage is where Simple Minds do their best work, it is where we forged our distinctive live reputation. For that reason we look forward immensely to taking Simple Minds Acoustic out on tour. Don’t be fooled by the acoustic tag however! These shows will be as energetic and passionate as ever.”

For ticket details for the Nottingham visit, you can see www.trch.co.uk