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Apr 25, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Holly Whitaker

England’s Black Country, New Road have announced some new North American tour dates. They happen this August and September and include shows in Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Denver, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Washington, New York, Montreal, and more. Check them all out below.

The band recently digitially released a new live album, Live at Bush Hall, that followed the recently released new concert film of the same name. It features all new songs not previously released by the band, except for in the concert film. Live at Bush Hall is due out physically on May 26 via Ninja Tune.

When Black Country, New Road’s former frontman, Isaac Wood, announced that he was leaving the band last year only days before the February release of their sophomore album, Ants From Up There (also on Ninja Tune), the band vowed to continue on and to not perform any of the material from Ants From Up There without Wood and so they wrote all new songs to perform live.

The band now consists of Lewis Evans, May Kershaw, Georgia Ellery, Luke Mark, Tyler Hyde and Charlie Wayne, with Kershaw, Evans, and Hyde sharing vocal duties.

“We didn’t want to do a studio album,” said pianist/vocalist Kershaw in a previous press release. “We wrote the new tracks specifically to perform live, so we thought it might be a nice idea to put out a performance.”

“It’s about capturing the moment,” added saxophonist/vocalist Evans. “A little time capsule of these eight months that we’ve had playing these songs on the road.”

Greg Barnes directed the Live at Bush Hall film, which was mixed by John Parish. The footage was filmed over three nights at London’s Bush Hall and the film features eight songs.

“We had concerns from live sessions we’ve seen or done in the past,” said guitarist Mark. “They are very obviously clumped together visually from multiple performances. That can take you out of the performance and make it seem artificial and like it’s not actually live. So we came up with the idea to make the three nights look visually distinct from one another. To scratch the idea of trying to disguise anything. We wanted it to be very honest and let people know that we had three goes at it. This isn’t just us playing the whole thing non-stop.”

The press release explained that each of the three shows had “its own distinct theme and aesthetic inspired by amateur dramatic performances, based around school plays, a pastoral scene and a haunted pizza parlor called, yes, I Ain’t Alfredo No Ghosts. There’s even an end of school prom party.”

Evans further explained: “We came up with fake plays. And wrote a fake synopsis, dressed as the characters, and made programmes and sets for each play. It was really exciting and made it a lot more fun.”

Ants From Up There was acclaimed and made it on our Top 100 Albums of 2022 list. Read our rave review of the album here.

Read our interview with Black Country, New Road on Ants From Up There and Wood’s departure here.

Pick up our new print issue (Issue 71) to read our new interview with the band.

Black Country, New Road 2023 North American Tour Dates:

Fri Aug 25 - Hollywood Theatre - Vancouver, CA
Sat Aug 26 - Thing Festival - Port Townsend, WS, US
Sun Aug 27 - Wonder Ballroom - Portland, OR, US
Tue Aug 29 - Great American - San Francisco, CA, US
Thu Aug 31 - Regent - Los Angeles, CA, US
Tue 5 Sep - Portal - Las Vegas, NV, US
Wed Sep 6 - Soundwell, Salt Lake City, UT, US
Fri Sep 8 - Meow Wolf, Denver, CO, US
Sun Sep 10 - Bottleneck, Lawrence, KS, US
Tue Sep 12 - Fine Line - Minneapolis, MN, US
Wed Sep 13 - Thalia Hall, Chicago, IL, US
Thu Sep 14 - MOCAD, Detroit, MI, US
Fri Sep 15 - Opera House, Toronto, CA
Sat Sep 16 - Le National, Montreal, CA
Sun Sep 17 - The Sinclair, Boston, MA, US
Tue Sep 19 - First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA, US
Wed Sep 20 - Howard Theatre, Washington DC, US
Thu Sep 21 - Knockdown Center, New York City, NY, US

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