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The show’s opening act first rose to fame with the release of their debut album, Crocodiles. The album was released in 1980 to widespread acclaim and soared into the top 20 on the UK album charts. After the release of their second album Heaven Up Here, the band attained cult fame and secured their place as one of rock’s most beloved bands. The group’s most recent album was released in 2018, The Stars, the Oceans & The Moon, contains reimagined orchestral versions of past material as well as two new songs.

After several line-up changes, the group now consists of founding members Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant. Also set to take the stage in Liverpool are the group’s touring musicians Jez Wing, Kelley Stoltz and Stephen Brannan. Speaking on the group’s forthcoming hometown show, McCulloch has given the following statement, “Two dreams in one – there’s nothing like The Rolling Stones, and there’s nowhere like Anfield.”

The singer continued to express his excitement to open for The Rolling Stones, “I can’t explain how unbelievably happy and proud I am that my band Echo And The Bunnymen are going to be opening up for The Rolling Stones, THE Greatest Rock Roll band in the history of time, at Anfield, the Shrine of Life and football…The Rolling Stones!!! And at Anfield!!! I feel honoured and blessed… Thank you God.”

The Rolling Stones also discussed the Liverpool show, saying, “It’s great to have Echo And The Bunnymen join us as special guests in their home city. We can’t wait to be back on stage in Liverpool! Roll on the summer!” In the statement, the band also expressed their joy to return to the road for their upcoming anniversary tour, the scheduled thirteen shows will be held to celebrate sixty years of the band and their genre defining music.

A statement on the band’s website also describes the importance behind the  “Paint It Back” hitmaker’s tour, “The Stones just keep on rolling! We are thrilled to announce the Rolling Stones 2022 Tour! Titled SIXTY to celebrate 60 special years together – Mick, Keith and Ronnie will be playing dates across Europe this summer, including two shows at London’s BST Hyde Park.”

The tour will kick start with string of European performances; the band are scheduled to begin the tour with a set in Madrid on the 1st of June 2022. The Rolling Stones will then perform in Munich before returning to the UK for their Liverpool performance with Echo & The Bunnymen. On 17th June 2022, the group will return to Europe to perform at Amsterdam, Bern and Millan. Following their three European dates, the band will come home to London to perform at this year’s American Express Presents BST, the rockers will take the Hyde Park stage on 25^th June and 3^rd July 2022. The group will conclude the tour with five more European performances in Brussels, Vienna, Lyon, Paris, Gelsenkirchen and Stockholm.

The Rolling Stones Sixty UK tour dates

09/06 – Anfield Stadium – Liverpool
25/06 – American Express Presents BST Hyde Park – London
03/07 – American Express Presents BST Hyde Park – London

Click here to purchase tickets.

Due to the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak, the Bunnymen May and June 2021 shows have been postponed. The rearranged dates will instead take place in Feb & March 2022. Please keep hold of your tickets as they will be valid for the rescheduled dates. pic.twitter.com/lAghzKHHXF

— Echo & the Bunnymen (@Bunnymen) March 3, 2021

Speaking about the tour last year, frontman Ian McCulloch said “I can’t wait to be out there with the band on all those stages in all those cities and towns, doing what I love most, playing our magical songs to our brilliant fans and, hopefully, making all our lives a little bit happier along the way.” While the earthy-toned vocalist will have to wait a little longer to get back on stage, fans will eagerly await the opportunity to celebrate the album that kickstarted the Liverpudlian group’s 1980s’ purple patch, and a career spanning four decades.

Crocodiles served as an early introduction to the sparse, moody sound that would typify the band’s unique contribution to the new-wave indie scene. The BBC‘s Chris Jones said that the album “single-handedly defined what it meant to be young and impossibly cool on Merseyside…mixing punk’s stripped-down aesthetic with a love of both the Velvets and a whole host of psychedelic icons from the Doors to Love.”

The record paved the way for 1981’s acclaimed Heaven Up Here and two British Gold-certified albums in Porcupine (1983) and the seminal Ocean Rain (1984). Porcupine spawned the band’s first UK top 10 single in The Cutter, while Ocean Rain produced what is arguably their most enduringly popular track in The Killing Moon; an intensely atmospheric gothic ballad which McCulloch has since described as “the greatest song ever written.” The group capped off a golden period with their eponymous 1987 LP Echo & the Bunnymen, which reached number #4 in the Official UK Albums Chart.

Since then Echo & The Bunnymen have experienced their fair share of tumult; with several line-up changes and personal tragedies – notably the deaths in motorcycle accidents of drummer Pete De Freitas and keyboardist Jake Brockman in 1989 and 2009 respectively. McCulloch and guitarist Will Sergeant are the only members of the original outfit still in post. Since the turn of the century, the band have released six studio albums; while McCulloch has dropped two solo albums of his own and linked-up with other artists; notably collaborating with the Manic Street Preachers on their stunning 2010 track Some Kind of Nothingness.

The Bunnymen’s last studio album was 2018’s The Stars, The Oceans & The Moon; a collection of reimagined versions of classic tracks which reached number #11 in the UK Albums Charts. In a press release, McCulloch – who described the record as a career overview with “strings and things attached” – said “I’m not doing this for anyone else, I’m doing it as it’s important to me to make the songs better. I have to do it.”

The full list of dates for Echo & The Bunnymen’s 2022 UK Tour is as follows:

01/02/22 – City Hall – Sheffield
02/02 – O2 Academy – Leeds
04/02 – O2 Academy – Bournemouth
05/02 – St Davids Hall – Cardiff
07/02 – Roundhouse – London
11/02 – UEA – Norwich
12/02 – Sage – Gateshead
14/02 – Philharmonic Hall – Liverpool
16/02 – Albert Hall – Manchester
17/02 – Rock City – Nottingham
19/02 – Corn Exchange – Cambridge
20/02 – O2 Academy – Bristol
22/02 – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire – London
23/02 – Royal and Derngate – Northampton
25/02 – Albert Hall – Manchester
26/02 – O2 Academy – Birmingham
28/02 – Barrowland – Glasgow
01/03 – Barrowland – Glasgow
06/03 – De La Warr Pavilion – Bexhill-on-Sea

.@CreationDayFest line-up announced! #GigTickets on sale Friday 23 October at 10am. https://t.co/nvEUXuo6CN pic.twitter.com/ULyCDzWvUe

— Get To The front (@gettothefront) October 16, 2020

Happy Mondays and Echo and the Bunnymen head up the bill on the first day of the festival (Saturday 29th May); which will also feature sets from Echobelly, Merseyside rockers Cast and Kirkcaldy four-piece Shambolics. Day Two (Sunday 30th May) is headed up by Editors, who scored noughties hits with Munich and Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors; Friendly Fires; Ash and Glasvegas.

Glasvegas’ set will coincide with the release of their upcoming fourth studio album Godspeed. The Scottish outfit, who burst onto the scene in 2008 with their Phil Spector-influenced debut album Glasvegas, dropped their latest single Keep Me A Space in August. The rousing track returns the band to the melodic ‘wall of sound’ feel which powered their excellent early singles Geraldine and Daddy’s Gone.

Other acts featuring on Day Two of the festival include indie rockers Sleeper, who reformed in 2017 after a nineteen year hiatus; Leeds veterans The Wedding Present; and Anglo-Italian alt-rock four-piece Cat FX, who have been hailed by Clash Magazine as a “rebel force… continually championing the underdog“.

The Creation Day Festival website promises a two-day event that “…testifies to a trailblazing history and a vibrant future…the ultimate celebration of all things Creation, as orchestrated by the man, the myth and the legend behind it all.” The man in question, Alan McGee – who famously helped launch the careers of Super Furry Animals, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Fanclub and Oasis during his tenure at Creation Records – has recently spoken of his disenchantment with the modern music scene.

In an interview with NME, he said “You’ve got to accept that the music industry and media don’t want young, punky indie rock n’ roll bands. They just don’t. That makes it easier for me, as the quality I’m signing up is incredible. I don’t know if it will ever change, because the culture is just so different now. There are other people doing great stuff… I don’t know if there’s a happy ending for the industry if it stops putting out records by hungry indie punk rock ‘n’ roll bands. But I’m not trying to change anything, I’m just doing it because I like doing it.”

McGee – who has stated that he wants the Creation Day Festival to become an annual event – will hope that his new summer showcase can demonstrate that the British indie scene still has plenty left in the tank. Tickets for the Creation Day Festival are available online from 23rd October at www.ticketmaster.co.uk/creation-day

Front-man Ian McCulloch has expressed his excitement at the announcement. The singer enthused, in an interview with the NME, that he could not wait to play their ‘magical songs‘ to their ‘brilliant fans‘. The tour includes dates at many iconic venues such as the The Roundhouse in London (12th May) and The Albert Hall in Manchester (31st May), as well as a homecoming show at the Liverpool Philharmonic (10th May). McCulloch emphasised that he wanted to ‘be out there with the band‘, on ‘all those stages in all those cities and towns‘, in order to make ‘lives happier‘.

Crocodiles, released in 1980, was Echo and the Bunnymen’s first album. It earned the band critical acclaim and commercial success, peaking at 17th in the UK album charts. The record contorts around themes of loneliness and despair, which mirrored a British society mired in a post-war unemployment high. McCulloch reflected this sentiment in the album’s headline track, Rescue, in which he admitted to being ‘jumbled up‘ and to feeling that things were ‘wrong‘. The British Phonographic Industry awarded a gold disc to the band in 1984 after the album sold 100,000 units.

McCulloch’s haunting vocals, coupled with the skull-shattering drums of Pete de Freitas, converted the band into central figures of the post punk renaissance, following the success of their debut. The post punk movement aimed to maintain the independence of punk rock, whilst moving beyond it’s raw sound by experimenting with different genres. It was Echo and the Bunnymen’s alternative tracks and subsequent position within this movement that framed their future achievements.

Their third and fourth albums, Porcupine (1983) and Ocean Rain (1984), increased their fame further and included the top-10 singles The Cutter and The Killing Moon. The band, having split-up in 1993 but reforming in 1996, continue to create and perform. They released their most recent album, named The Stars The Oceans and The Moon in 2018, and in 2019 they opened for The Doves at the Gunnersville festival. Their work stalks modern popular culture and has recently been heard in TV shows such as 13 Reasons Why, Stranger Things and MisFits.

Echo and the Bunnymen boast a devout cult following and a sound coated in formative experimental rebellion. McCulloch’s eagerness to pay tribute to the record that kick-started a snarling 40 year musical journey ensures a string of shows that will drip in nostalgia, and serve as a reminder of the band’s existential talent.

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Pre-sale tickets for our May 2021 UK tour are available now from: http://gigst.rs/EATBpre We hope to see you there to celebrate 40 years of magical songs.

A post shared by Official Echo And The Bunnymen (@officialbunnymen) on Jun 24, 2020 at 2:00am PDT

Tour Dates:

07/05/2021  – Sheffield City Hall, Sheffield.
08/05 – Birmingham O2 Academy, Birmingham.
10/05 – Liverpool Philharmonic, Liverpool.
12/05 -London Roundhouse, London.
14/05 – Cambridge Corn Exchange, Cambridge.
15/05 – Norwich UEA, Norwich.
16/05 – Northampton Derngate, Northampton.
18/05 – Leeds O2 Academy, Leeds.
19/05 – Bristol O2 Academy, Bristol.
21/05 – Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill On Sea.
22/05 – Bournemouth O2 Academy, Bournemouth.
23/05 – Cardiff St David’s Hall, Cardiff.
25/05 – Glasgow Barrowland, Glasgow.
26/05– Gateshead Sage, Gateshead.
28/05 – Nottingham Rock City, Nottingham.
31/05 – Manchester Albert Hall, Manchester.