After their homecoming gig at The Alban Arena in August, the trio will be touring across the UK in late November/ early December performing in Nottingham, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, London, and Brighton. Friendly Fires will also be appearing at Connect Festival in Edinburgh and Victorious Festival in Portsmouth in August.

Tickets go on sale Friday 26^th May at 10 am BST. For tickets and more information see here.

Friendly Fires previously played their debut record in its entirety during a two-day residency at HERE at Outernet in London. Last week the party-loving band continued the celebrations and played two more gigs in Norwich and Hull.

The band took to social media on the 22^nd May to announce that they would be extending their tour further writing, “We‘ve had such a ridiculously fun time playing these first album shows that we‘re going to spread the love to some more corners of the UK.” They continued, “Join us to raise a glass, and have a dance- it’s gonna be special.”

A special 15th-anniversary re-issue of the vinyl edition of Friendly Fires and the “Paris” 12 inch including the Aeroplane remix in silver and gold respectively has also been made available to pre-order. For more information see here.

Ed Macfarlane, Jack Savidge, and Edd Gibson met at St Albans School aged 13 and formed the post-hard-core band First Day Back covering Green Day tracks and the like until they left for university. Post-uni the lads regrouped and took a new musical direction taking inspiration from the German techno label Kompakt, Carl Craig, and Prince to form the dance band Friendly Fires.

Their sophomore single “Paris” gathered attention from critics receiving single of the week in The Guardian, NME magazine, and on Zane Lowe’s BBC Radio 1 show. With their infectious sunshine and upbeat energy, it’s no surprise the singles from Friendly Fires became favourites for soundtracking TV commercials and television series – “On Board” featured in Nintendo’s Wii Fit commercial, and “White Diamond” can be heard in the second season of Gossip Girl.

Watch the video for “Paris” below:

In 2008, the album was released becoming a favourite for former indie sleaze party kids. Friendly Fires was certified double gold, nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, and led to the band being nominated for Best British Group and British Breakthrough Act at the Brit Awards in 2010.

For Friendly Fires’ UK tour dates see below:

24/08/23 – Arena – St Albans
25/08 – Victorious Festival – Portsmouth
26/08 – Connect Festival – Edinburgh
23/11 – Rock City – Nottingham
24/11 – O2 Victoria Warehouse – Manchester
25/11 – O2 Institute – Birmingham
28/11 – Beckett Students Union – Leeds
30/11 – Troxy – London
1/12 – Dome – Brighton

The singer will be performing two intimate shows in New York – one in Queens and one in Brooklyn – later this month. He will make his debut UK performance in London on the 9^th May at Here at Outernet and will return the following evening for a second show.

As ever with the tricksy musician, getting your hands on tickets is not as simple as just purchasing them. Tickets to the dates are exclusively accessible through a ballot on his cyber maze of a website. Fans need to register by 10 am BST on the 3^rd May for London shows to be in with a chance of winning tickets and only a maximum of two tickets are available per person. The winners will be announced the following day. For the link to the artist’s website (and tickets) see here.

Last Saturday (the 15^th April) the California dessert hosted a historic event with the mysterious and flighty singer making his debut live performance at Coachella festival much to the millennial crowd and former MySpace users’ delight.

jai paul
coachella
first ever performance pic.twitter.com/y1vFCS055T

— Brownies & Lemonade (@TeamBandL) April 16, 2023

The first live performance from Jai Paul will remain shrouded in mystery for those not in attendance as it was not officially live-streamed by the festival, unlike other acts on the line-up. Thankfully, fan-recorded footage of the concert is circulating the internet. Jai was joined on stage by his brother A.K. Paul who played guitar for the performance.

The artist shared a message on Reddit ahead of the concert for his cult fans writing, “this weekend I’m gonna be playing my first ever live show and Im not gonna lie I am absolutely shitting it”. He added, “Hopefully it’s all gonna be worth it”.

Yoo it’s Jai
by u/aat_naabat in jaipaul

Jai Paul will also be performing next weekend for the second weekend of Coachella.

See below for the setlist for his debut performance:

“Higher Res”
“He”
“Crush” (Jennifer Page Cover)
“100,000”
“So Long”
“Chix”
“All Night”
“Do You Love Her Now”
“Jasmine”
“BTSTU”
“St8 Outta Mumbai”

The musician from Rayners Lane, London first gained notoriety in 2007 when his demo “BTSTU”, which Paul had posted on his MySpace, began receiving attention on music blogs. This led to the singer being signed to XL Recordings, international press coverage, extensive radio play, and the song being sampled by both Drake and Beyoncé. His second 2012 demo “Jasmine (demo)” received similar acclaim. However, after his aborted debut album Bait Ones was leaked by an unknown source in 2013 Paul took a hiatus from music struggling to deal with the rumours of his own responsibility for the leak.

In 2016, Jai returned to the public eye launching the record label Paul Institute alongside his brother. His leaked LP was officially released under the title Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones) in 2019 with a new double single “Do You Love Her Now / He” as the B-side to the album.

See below for Jai Paul’s London dates:

09/05/23 – Here at Outernet – London
10/05 – Here at Outernet – London