Bastille
February 6 and 7, O2 Academy, Glasgow
It's not only dedicated fans who will take note of these Bastille dates. The London four-piece certainly get around, having lending their name to film soundtracks, TV (EastEnders, Made In Chelsea) and sports coverage as well as mash-ups and collaborations with an array of chart stars from Rag 'n' Bone Man to Craig David.
In Happier, their heart-warming meet with US producer Marshmello, they scored the radio hit of 2018's long summer and reaffirmed their place as a band who make deft crossover hits with maximum potential appeal.
These dates in Glasgow, their only Scottish stop-off on this tour, will be a chance to hear material from their forthcoming third album, the follow-up to Wild World which topped the UK album charts in 2016 and hit the top ten in the US and countries across Europe.
Announcing the tour, frontman Dan Smith said: “We’ve spent most of this last year working on loads of new music and touring different versions of our songs so now we’re excited to head back out and revisit more intimate rooms and play a bunch of new songs in the lead up to our new album”.
Whether playing two nights at the 2500-capacity 02 Academy is “intimate”, is relative, of course. With just two albums under their belts, the band – Smith, keyboardist Kyle Simmons, bassist/guitarist Will Farquarson and drummer Chris Wood – have played over 500 shows across six continents, sold 15 million singles and seen a breathtaking 3.5 billion streams.
Their rise came quickly. Originally founded as a solo project in 2010 by Smith, four years later they were nominated for awards from the US to Australia and took the Brit Award for British breakthrough band.
Smith has hinted at the content of new album, ominously titled at present as Doom Days. Speaking to the NME, the singer said the album – due for release in spring - looks to the past for a more retro sound and described it as “a record of middle-of-the-night torch songs with elements of slightly nostalgic rave beats from the Fatboy Slim, Prodigy era.”
Whereas touring Wild World was “talking about the world, questioning it, being confused by it”, Doom Days will be more escapist, he says.
Until then, there's a new installment of Other People’s Heartache, a mixtape series Bastille began in 2012 with the original idea of them as scores to imagined films. They've also allowed the band to stretch and experiment in often unlikely directions, most notably with Of The Night, an “accidental” Number 2 hit which melded 1990s dance classics The Rhythm Of The Night by Corona and Snap!'s Rhythm Is A Dancer.
Released a few weeks ago, Other People’s Heartache Pt 4 is their strangest, most beguiling edition yet, opening with a haunting take on Cat Stevens' Wild World, as well as reuniting them with past collaborator Craig David and young r'n'b artist Kianja for sorrowful, soulful renditions of Charles and Eddie's Would I Lie To You? and En Vogue's Don't Let Go. There's also a nod to the new album in a torrid re-take on Bastille original The Descent which segues into Doom Days cut Million Pieces. The prevalent mood is that of the contemporary super-hero epic: thoughtful, bruised and yearning for redemption.
“We wanted to nod to our last album and acknowledge that at the time, you couldn’t help but feel anxious about the terrifying changes in the world and that since then, they've all come to pass and everybody’s living through the consequences,” says Smith of the collection. "Obviously these feel like perpetually stranger times, so it feels like different forms of escapism and distraction are more vital than ever.”
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