This piece also features in our Winter 24/25 What’s On Brochure, available now. Words by Hayley Jackson.
Like any cultural institution, we’re constantly striving to strike the balance between honouring the old and championing the new – of looking back with reverence whilst looking ahead with intrigue – and nowhere is this more apparent than across our upcoming Spring events programme.
On the one hand, it’s essential to celebrate the movements and the moments in time that have shaped the musical landscape as we now know it. That might be with a show like The Musical Box on Saturday 19 April, a returning favourite that recreates, with astounding historical accuracy and in painstakingly particular detail, Genesis’ much-lauded live show at Leicester’s De Montfort Hall in 1973, which has since acquired cult status as a quintessential early performance amongst the band’s biggest fans. Remembering a ‘moment’ more broadly, legendary Radio 2 tastemaker Tony Blackburn joins us on Wednesday 12 March for a return to the Sounds of the 60s, a night of songs and stories inspired by his weekly show of the same name, in which audiences can expect to hear much-loved hits from perhaps the most fruitful decade in popular culture, having produced The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and dozens more enduring icons. Focusing instead on a subculture that exploded in the years that followed, on Thursday 6 February, Punk Off celebrates the insubordinate sound, style and spirit of punk, ‘from its birth in New York City to its adolescence in London’, with a stage show featuring fayre from the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees and more, all narrated by longtime We Will Rock You cast member and Coronation Street star Kevin Kennedy.
Elsewhere, for the soap fans among you, on Tuesday 18 February, we welcome the cast of daytime TV institution Neighbours as part of its 40th Anniversary Tour, inviting fans to join a selection of their favourite faces from Ramsay Street as they share ‘the inside scoop on what life is really like’ in the fictional suburb of Erinsborough. Also taking to our stage to mark a 40th anniversary – though, in this case, the start of her undeniably spectacular career as a solo artist – is the inimitable Alison Moyet, whose new album, Key, sees her sharing reworked singles, fan favourites and deep cuts from across the past four decades, this theme of reflection almost certain to be echoed when she joins us on Friday 21 February. Dwarfing Moyet’s mere four decades of dedicated service, however, are veterans Uriah Heep, who, having been a fixture on the hard rock scene for a staggering 55 years, will be winding down their live commitments following one epic final outing: a tour aptly titled The Magician’s Farewell. They’ll be with us on Tuesday 25 February, just before indie darlings Bear’s Den on Tuesday 11 March, whose tenderly anthemic tracks have amassed them a devoted international fan base. 2024 marks ten years of their critically-lauded debut, Islands’, its influence evident even now, more than a decade on from its release.
When it comes to influence, one particular genre excels at paying tribute to the towering legacies of the individual titans who, over time, have helped to shape its future. We’re referring to classical music, of course, and our two resident orchestras are no exception to this uniquely reverent rule. For instance, frequently cited as one of the most influential compositions of the 20th century, the Hallé will once more be performing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring on Thursday 27 March – ‘a surging, thunderous tribute to renewal’, according to their concert copy – and Saturday 22 March will see the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra tackle Grieg’s Piano Concerto, ‘a colossus of the solo repertoire’ led here by Paul Lewis on piano. Similarly, helming the latest edition of the Hallé’s popular Rush Hour series will be a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth, the gateway ‘banger’ boasting one of the classical canon’s most instantly recognisable riffs.
As well as paying tribute to these timeless and indefatigable pieces of the past though, it’s equally important to look at what’s around us and what, too, might lie ahead. The Hallé’s Game On on Saturday 1 February promises to be ‘a mesmerising celebration of symphonic game music’, featuring fan-favourite arrangements from Assassin’s Creed, World of Warcraft, The Witcher 3 and more, the setlist highlighting just a few of the ways in which the artform continues to transform with the times, both within the concert hall and further afield. No doubt many of those scores will be familiar to fans of TommyInnit, the internet sensation celebrated for his anarchic style of gaming, who’ll be bringing his first ever stand-up tour to The Bridgewater Hall on Monday 7 April, adding another string to his bow alongside ‘YouTube star’, ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘two-time published author’.
The Hallé also bring something fresh to the stage with Angélique Kidjo Sings Ifé Songs on Thursday 13 February, a compelling pre-Valentine’s pairing of the Grammy-award winning singer-songwriter and beloved composer Philip Glass. The evening will see Angélique perform the UK premiere of the title piece, written by Glass especially for her. He says of the work: ‘Angélique, together we have built a bridge that no one has walked on before.’. This essence of collaboration will also prove key for Manchester Collective x Clark, their show on Friday 25 April both a part of our flagship International Concert Series and a testament to what can be achieved when two leading forces in contemporary music combine, the shapeshifting orchestral ensemble teaming up with electronic artist and composer-producer Chris Clark for an evening that defies expectations.
One woman who’s done just that to grow into a genuine musical sensation is ‘the Grace Jones of jazz’, Lady Blackbird, who joins us for an unforgettable evening on Tuesday 4 February following the release of her second album, Slang Spirituals. It’s a record with lyrics recalling their writer’s challenging ascent to musical stardom, all set to the freewheeling sound fans are familiar with and delivered by a woman who boasts the sort of voice better suited to a bygone era but a soul that’s truly of her time. Something else that feels particularly timely is Murder Trial Tonight, which returns to the Hall on Friday 7 March following two sell-out nights last summer. Alchemising the current cultural appetite for true crime and the immersive experience of a live show, audiences will once more be invited to step into the shoes of a juror as they hear from the prosecution and the defence before being asked to consider the ultimate question: guilty or not guilty? It’s a verdict that, among other things, the stars of daily current affairs podcast The News Agents will have reported on more times than is worth mentioning, and on Monday 24 February, they’ll be joining us for a special live edition in which Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall will give their takes on the topics of the day. Though they may deal with world events whilst we take pride in hosting live ones, no listing within our Spring calendar encapsulates quite so neatly a similar need to share focus across the past, the present and the future, an evening that necessarily demands we look not only backwards, not only forwards, but at all of it – at everything that surrounds us.