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The run of shows brings some of the biggest names in music to south Manchester, with headline performances from The Cure, Lewis Capaldi, Pulp and The Prodigy, alongside Courteeners’ own homecoming gig on Saturday the 29th of August. Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has confirmed that tram passengers will hear frontman, Fray’s, voice on every concert date with a distinct set of announcements reserved for the official Courteeners show itself.

Metrolink is running as many double trams as possible, with services departing the city centre roughly every seven and a half minutes throughout the concert period. Concert-goers are being encouraged to travel via the Airport line and get off at Moor Road, which is around a ten-minute walk from the Wythenshawe Park entrance.

Those who are looking to combine different modes of transport, TfGM is offering an event travel pass priced at £8 per day.

The pass covers travel on Bee Network buses, trams and shuttle buses running between Manchester city centre, East Didsbury and the venue. These tickets, and transport reservations can be purchased in advance through the Bee Network app. Many regular bus routes also serve the area near the park, including the 41, 103, 370 and 371 along Palatine Road, and the 11, 248 and 249 on Altrincham Road, though passengers are advised to check for diversions on event days due to expected overload of excited concert goers.

The park and ride sites are available nearby, including a large facility at Sale Water Park offering a direct tram link to Moor Road, ensuring the concert attendees have access despite not driving themselves.

Enlisting local musicians to voice tram announcements has become a tradition on the Metrolink network around major events in the north. In past years, Liam Gallagher has recorded announcements for Oasis’s homecoming shows at Heaton Park in 2025, while past editions of BBC Music Day have featured contributions from Shaun Ryder, Ozzy Osbourne and Alfie Boe, among other talented musicians and artists.

With Wythenshawe Park set to host one of the liveliest stretches of live music Manchester has seen this summer, Fray’s involvement adds an intimate local touch to what is already becoming a landmark run of shows for the city of Manchester. The promotional value and advertisement works to a professional and creative extent, which fans love to see when it comes to seeing their favourite band.

The song was produced by James Ford, who also worked on the band’s 2024 album ‘Romance’. The album blended raw guitar work electronic elements, ‘Marianne’ moves further into synthesizers, built around strings, percussion, and a theatrical atmosphere.

Frontman ,Grian Chatten, has said the new album draws on time spent traveling through Venice, Vienna, and Sicily, and that it marks a deliberate move away from the more organic feel of ‘Romance’ toward something more processed. He has also pointed to the 2024 thriller series ‘Ripley’ as a partial inspiration for ‘Marianne’, whose lyrics center on escapism, seduction, and reinvention, giving the listener an invitation into disappearance and individuality.

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The band first played ‘Marianne’ live at their opening headline show of the year in Cádiz, Spain, in early August, alongside another new track, ‘Six Shot Morning’. A short teaser clip appeared on YouTube later, followed by an Instagram post confirming a fifth album was coming. The finished single was released on the 18th of  August with a hallucinogenic music video directed by Dave Meyers, whose past credits include Travis Scott’s ‘Sicko Mode’ and Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Humble’.

‘Dopamine Chamber’ follows ‘Romance’, which was nominated for the Mercury Prize and certified platinum in the UK. According to the band, the new album explores the pursuit of pleasure and distraction in a world heading toward collapse, touching on anxieties around artificial intelligence, environmental crisis, and political pressure. The group that includes, Chatten, Carlos O’Connell, Conor Curley, Conor Deegan III, and Tom Coll  have also recently contributed to the Peaky Blinders: ‘Immortal Man’ soundtrack and the ‘War Child Help(2)’ compilation.

Dopamine Chamber is set for release for all fans to hear on the 16th of October!

The gigs will take place at Circuit, the venue on Clarence Street formerly known as Pryzm, on Monday 7th and Tuesday 8th September. The shows mark the release of ‘Act III’, Kasabian’s ninth studio album, which arrived on 17th July via Columbia Records. Fronted by Serge Pizzorno’s vocals, the record spans ten tracks and three interludes of guitar-driven, psychedelic-esque pop sounds, and has been described as one of the band’s most confident efforts in years. It follows 2024’s ‘Happenings’ and continues with Pizzorno having steered Kasabian through a striking creative resurgence since taking over as the frontman.

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‘Act III’ was first previewed back in September 2025 with the single ‘Hippie Sunshine’, unveiled the same night the band played a surprise pub gig at The Finsbury in north London to announce their huge Finsbury Park headline show. A second single, ‘Great Pretender’, followed in April 2026 alongside the album’s full tracklist.

The band has repeatedly used Pryzm/Circuit as a place to showcase material, having played the venue to mark the release of both ‘The Alchemist’s Euphoria’ in 2022 and ‘Happenings’ in 2024, shows that saw them debut singles live for the first time and thank the fanbase that has followed them and their music since their early days.

Tickets for those previous Kingston shows sold out quickly, with extra dates added each time to meet demand, so early booking for the September shows is likely to be essential.

Tickets go on general sale at 11am on Saturday 15th August via Banquet Records, the Kingston independent shop that has hosted the band’s homecoming-style launches for years. Due to demand, extra dates have already been added alongside the original shows, meaning fans now have four separate opportunities across the two evenings to catch the band up close!

The brief tour kicks off at An Seòmar in Inverness on August 20, before heading to Dundee’s Music Hall, Stockton-on-Tees’ Georgian Theatre, and finishing at Stoke’s Sugarmill. The choice of smaller venues, including stops in cities McKenna has never previously played, reflects a deliberate return to more stripped-back performances after performances that have been dominated by festival stages and support slots.

Sharing the news, McKenna said he was “so buzzing” to get back out on the road in this format. “It’s gonna be loud, live and intimate, and we’re even hitting some places I’ve never been to,” he said. “This one’s gonna be electric!”

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McKenna released his third studio album, ‘What Happened To The Beach?’, in 2024, and has spoken about the record marking a shift in his songwriting process. In a recent interview, he described the experience as empowering, explaining that it pushed him to try different kinds of songs and to absorb new approaches from the musicians he worked alongside, differing from how he’d made music in the past.

Since then, McKenna has kept a high profile without mounting a full headline UK tour. Last month, he opened for Imagine Dragons at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, exposing his music to a considerably larger crowd than his usually smaller shows. He has also made choir and guest appearances alongside other artists in recent months.

These new dates give fans a rare chance to see McKenna in far more intimate surroundings before he returns to his festival adventures. He’s booked in for slots at both Reading and Leeds Festival 2026, alongside acts including Fontaines D.C., toward the end of August, meaning this short club run doubles as both a homecoming for the singer, but also a warm up ahead of the large crowds that wait for him at Reading and Leeds.

Tickets for the newly announced shows are available now, with fans encouraged to move quickly given the limited capacity of the venues involved!

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The collaboration arrives during an exciting chapter in Parks’ career following the release of her third studio album, ‘Ambiguous Desire’. The record marked a new direction for the Mercury Prize-winning singer-songwriter, embracing themes of self-discovery while retaining the emotional fluency that has defined her work since her breakthrough tracks such as ‘Too Good’ and ‘Black Dog’ on her 2021 album ‘Collapsed Sunbeams’.

Glacier, known for her genre-defying style,  has built a reputation for pairing minimalist rap with atmospheric production and poetic lyricism. Her contribution compliments Parks’ reflective songwriting, creating a conversation between two distinctive voices who share an appreciation for vulnerability and storytelling. Parks delivers melodic verses filled with warmth and quiet resilience, while Glacier’s measured cadence introduces contrast and texture.

Fans have already praised the collaboration across social media, with many highlighting the natural chemistry between the pair and calling for more collaborative releases in the future. The song also reflects a growing trend of cross-genre collaborations within the UK music scene, where artists continue to blur the boundaries between indie, R&B, alternative rap, and electronic music.

For Parks, the release reinforces her willingness to experiment and explore, while staying true to her signature style. Since emerging with ‘Collapsed in Sunbeams’ and following it with ‘My Soft Machine’, she has consistently expanded her musical sounds without losing the emotional authenticity that first resonated with listeners. John Glacier, meanwhile, continues to cement her reputation as one of Britain’s most innovative voices, making this partnership a fitting meeting of two forward-thinking artists in our current charts.

The run kicks off in Kingston on Monday, 24th of August, taking the Australian trio to record stores and small venues across the country, with fans getting the chance to hear songs from the new album in exclusive live performances paired with signing sessions. Confirmed stops include Manchester, Middlesbrough, Dundee, Leeds, Norwich and Bristol.

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Ahead of their fourth album, DMA’S ran a similar series of in-store shows, with the Liverpool date selling out in 30 seconds and a second Edinburgh show added within four minutes of the first selling out. The demand is expected to be strong again, given the band’s growing UK stance.

The announcement comes as anticipation builds for the new record, following the release of lead single ‘Killing Time’.  The track is fast-paced and euphoric and follows earlier singles such as ‘My Baby’s Place’, ‘Heatin Park’ and ‘Hurracane’, which have expanded on the band’s signature indie-rock sounds while introducing fresh sonic aspects that are similar to their album ‘How Many Dreams?’

The album was written and recorded between the band’s own studio in Glebe, Sydney, and Los Angeles and is co-produced by DMA’S and  Grammy-nominated producer Lach Bostock, known for his work with Mansionair, with additional contributions from Jimi Somewhere and Styalz Fuego.

DMA’S, Johnny Took, Matt Mason and Tommy O’Dell  have built a UK following spanning more than a decade, with five Top 40 albums to their name. The band have also become festival mainstays, having played Glastonbury, Coachella, Lollapalooza and Truck Festival, making the acoustic run an exciting opportunity for fans to hear the new material in a stripped-back setting before it’s listened to in much bigger stages and venues.

DMA’S will launch a full UK and Ireland headline tour on the 1st of February 2027 in Southampton, building to a major show at London’s Eventim Apollo on the 12th of February, before continuing through Liverpool, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast and Dublin. The in-store shows will give the band’s most devoted fans a first, up-close listen to the new songs months before they’re heard in arenas and theatres across the UK!