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The lead single from the album ‘Up All Night’ is star studded as it sees contributions from American Singer-songwriter Noah Kahan as well as indie folk legends The Lumineers. The song sees the three take on an americana style for the track with them singing about their dreams and lives with the title lyrics recurring throughout the songs 3 minutes and 23 seconds.

According to NME James Bay talks about the meaning of ‘Up All Night': “‘Up All Night’ is all about navigating the great weight of all the stuff that plays on our minds and keeps us awake at night,” he explained. “I have some great history with Noah and The Lumineers. We manifested this collaboration for a while, and I feel proud we could make it happen!”

The upcoming album will be 11 tracks long and has been produced by Gabe Simon and also sees contributions from various stars including The Killers’ frontman Brandon Flowers, Holly Humberstone, Dan Wilson from Semisonic, Natalie Hemby of The Highwomen, and Kevin Garrett.

Fans can pre-order a copy of ‘Changes All The Time’ here. You will be able to order the album on CD or Vinyl as well as there being an exclusive vinyl LP which will come with an art card signed by the Hertfordshire born singer.

The full tracklist and album artwork for ‘Changes All The Time’ is below:

1. Up All Night (with The Lumineers & Noah Kahan)
2. Everburn
3. Hope
4. Easy Distraction
5. Speed Limit
6. Talk
7. Hopeless Heart
8. Some People
9. Go On
10. Crystal Clear
11. Dogfight

In addition to releasing an album Bay is set to embark on a run UK and Ireland headline tour dates in February next year. The tour will be the first time Bay has toured the UK and Ireland since 2022 and will commence with a show at Glasgow’s O2 Academy before performances in Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester and Dublin. The tour will conclude at the OVO Wembley arena on the 13th of February 2025.

Tickets for these shows will go on general sale on the 26th of July at 10am BST. Pre-sale for the tour will start at the same time on the 24th of July and you can gain access by pre-ordering a copy of ‘Changes All The Time’ from Bay’s official website before 4pm BST on the 23rd of July. You can buy tickets here.

James Bay’s full list of 2025 UK and Ireland tour dates are below:

FEBRUARY
1 – Glasgow, O2 Academy
4 – Newcastle, O2 City Hall
5 – Leeds, O2 Academy
7 – Manchester, O2 Apollo
8 – Birmingham, O2 Academy
10 – Dublin, 3Olympia
13 – London, OVO Arena Wembley

According to BBC News, “The Irish government has signed a contract for the use of the site at Stradbally. The site will house 750 people for the duration of the six-week contract, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) has said.” 

The department expects that the site will operate at full capacity just 2 days after welcoming refugees.

The Electric Picnic Festival site will provide hot meals and water, as well as hot shower facilities, toilets and an on-site paramedic.

Electric Picnic is an arts and music festival occurring annually since 2004. Every year, (excluding 2020 and 2021 due to the Coronavirus pandemic) Electric Picnic offers a vast selection of music, art, theatre and comedy acts, as well as food and holistic health merchandise. With an average of 70,000 attendees each year, Electric Picnic is Ireland’s biggest music festival, making it the perfect place to host a large number of refugees and those in need. The 2023 lineup included acts such as Billie Eilish, The Killers and Irish-born Niall Horan.

Well, that’s a wrap everyone!

Thank you all for an incredible weekend. See you again next year! #EP23 #EP24 #ElectricPicnic pic.twitter.com/lr94WpvTEU

— Electric Picnic (@EPfestival) September 4, 2023

The Irish government has provided housing to over 92,400 refugees since February 2021. 69,518 of these being people seeking refuge after fleeing the war in Ukraine.

A department spokesperson told BBC News “The summer months have seen an increase in the number of arrivals from Ukraine, with more than 10,000 people fleeing here since 1 May, an average of around 650 people per week”.

The Irish government has also gathered additional accommodation from local student housing and the tourism sector, however, these housing options are already at capacity. It is due to this, that tented accommodation is now going to be the first option for new arrivals from Ukraine and anyone seeking asylum in Ireland.

“A small number of new arrivals have already been placed in tents, and this will increase as new locations for tented facilities come on stream. Vulnerable arrivals will be prioritised for any non-tented accommodation available.” – BBC News

In addition to the Electric Picnic festival site, Croke Park, the Aviva Stadium, Dublin Airport and various ex-military camps are also being used to accommodate refugees that have arrived in Ireland over the past year.

Tickets for Electric Picnic 2024 will be available for purchase on September 8th at 9am on their official website.

Social media reactions began to pour in over the comedian’s unexpected cameo.

Was the Jimmy Carr?? You would expect him to turn up at a Killers gig. #Glastonbury2019 pic.twitter.com/qtAvfa7ryk

— Hon Lee (@mashupweb) June 29, 2019

The 46 year old comic is known to be good friends with the Killers lead singer, Brandon Flowers. In an interview with NME, Brandon explained Carr’s involvement in the creation of one of their songs, ‘Deadlines and Commitments’, saying, “I was having dinner with Jimmy Carr, like you do, and he thought the next big breakthrough record that people were going to notice was going to be about the problems of the economy.”

In 2017, at Glastonbury, Carr was spotted filming the Los Angeles band from the side of the stage, and going further back in time, in 2014, Carr joined The Killers on stage for their V Festival set in Chelmsford.

The 8 and out 10 Cats presenter was only the first surprise of the night, as The Killers were joined on stage by The Pet Shop Boys. The two bands duetted on The Killers 2008 hit, ‘Human’, and ‘You Were Always On My Mind’.

After the Pet Shop Boys bowed out from the stage, Brandon went on to say, “They say never meet your heroes but I think that went over alright.” After the Pet Shop Boys, Johnny Marr took to the stage, playing their version of ‘This Charming Man’ by The Smiths, and giving a hand on The Killers most famous hit, ‘Mr Brightside’.

So @thekillers have only gone and brought out the @petshopboys at Glastonbury. pic.twitter.com/gzmE0FnsAA

— ill Will (@officialillwill) June 29, 2019

The Killers complete setlist:

‘Jenny Was a Friend of Mine’
‘Somebody Told Me’
‘Spaceman’
‘The Way It Was’
‘Shot at the Night’
‘The Man’
‘Smile Like You Mean It’
‘For Reasons Unknown’
‘Human’ (Brandon Flowers solo piano intro)
‘Bling (Confession of a King)’
‘Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll’
‘A Dustland Fairytale’
‘Runaways’
‘Read My Mind’ (Snippet of “Lean on Me” Interlude)
‘All These Things That I’ve Done’
‘When You Were Young’

The encore of their set:

‘You Were Always on My Mind’ – (Gwen McCrae cover) (with Pet Shop Boys)
‘Human’ (with Pet Shop Boys)
‘This Charming Man’ – (The Smiths Cover) (with Johnny Marr)
‘Mr. Brightside’ (with Johnny Marr)

Tune in to @zanelowe on @Beats1 tomorrow at 9AM PST for something new… https://t.co/AwEfsoPnJw pic.twitter.com/3NInstcAt9

— The Killers (@thekillers) 13 January 2019

While it is still unclear what the announcement will be, back in December the band released a photograph of them back in the studio. Singer Brandon Flowers was behind a keyboard with an someone sitting at a computer, with production software clearly up on the screen. Drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr gave an interview to NME where he told them he didn’t think there would be a 5 year break between new material and a new album, like there had been between ‘Battle Born’ and ‘Wonderful Wonderful’.

After making mistakes and the band recognising they needed to ‘grow up’ with ‘Battle Born’ in 2012, ‘Wonderful Wonderful’ was about the band coming back together after a string of solo releases, including Brandon Flowers’s ‘The Desired Effect in 2015, that debuted at No1 in the UK Album Chart.

After ‘Wonderful Wonderful’ Flowers was asked what could be coming next in terms of a new album, Brandon explained that he had no idea; “It’s just all evolution and you learn from each record. It’s funny, I’ve found that I wait for it to present itself to me. I don’t necessarily say I’m going in and this is the record I’m going to make. I don’t think you can force it because whether you like it or not, things that you’ve absorbed in the last couple of years since are going to expose themselves and it’s going to be different to what you had planned”.

In juxtaposition drummer Ronnie said that he did have an inkling at what was coming next for The Killers; “I do. i’m constantly messing around with things and I see a lot online… there’s still a lot to be discovered and I think keeping with the tradition of always trying something new with a record might be something for us to look into”. 

Guitarist Dave Keuning’s solo project will also be released this month, after he told NME that he regretted not doing it sooner, as it had awakened the creative part of him that had been diminished after a set of gruelling and exhausting tour with The Killers. Keuning decided to take a step back from touring, and decided to stay at home in San Diego whilst the band toured after their ‘Wonderful Wonderful’ album release. The result is a 14 track album named ‘Prismism’ due to be released on January 25.

The new album will be their fifth studio album, with no release date set Flowers stated “In a perfect world I think the end of 2016 maybe, there’ll be something.” Perfect world provided, this will be the first Killers album in four years, after 2012’s Battleborn.

With the band coming up to their 15th birthday Flowers admitted there are new challenges the band face in the studio, saying: “When you get older you get more accustomed to doing it and it gets harder in a way. It’s easier to write a song and finish a song now, than when we used to really slave over it and the songs would be too long or we don’t know exactly what we’re doing.

“Now it’s more second nature [but] it’s harder to sift through what’s terrible and what’s great, because it’s so easy to complete a song. So I think that’s where you get a lot of bands being complacent and just going through the motions. You get a lot of bands that don’t do great things later on, and so hopefully because I’m aware of that we can really do something better and something great this time.”

But the Killers frontman is positive about writing the new album, saying “I think if we can just get on the same page and really apply what we’ve learnt from over a 1000 shows now and playing clubs and stadiums and all of that and really apply what we’ve learnt over the years that’s what I’m excited about.” He also added “We never really set out to do anything, you just sort of wait for lightning to strike. That’s the best way, but it’s elusive, ol’ lightning.”

Flowers released a solo album earlier this year called Desired Effect. Asked whether he was planning on releasing more solo material in the future he said: “If The Killers want to take a year or two off then there’s no reason for me not to make a solo record but if the fires are burning in the band then there will be a Killers record.”