In today's fast-paced mid-apocalyptic world it can feel like a waste of time to speak about time at all. Why dwell on the past when we could just live in the present because the future won't shut up about how bad it's going to be?

But with This Is The Kit, the pseudonym of songwriter / banjo strummer / pinhole camera lover / Winchester UK born Paris dweller Kate Stables, we're going to have to give time just a modicum of consideration. Because not only is Kate still here and making albums of cataclysmic honesty and welcoming tonal embraces, they are continuing to grow, which is probably the only smart way to move forward through time.

This Is The Kit's music places companionship at a premium, so being welcomed into its space feels like an obvious privilege, on record and in concert hall with her stellar supporting cast of Rozi Plain (bass), Jamie Whitby-Coles (drums) and Neil Smith (guitar). And at this current point in our confusing history, continuing to be here at all, to stand tall and make music to gather to, that's a heroic act. Joyful survival as an act of time-wasting, I'll take that any day of the week. Look to This Is The Kit to spend at least one day of your week this year, I guarantee it will be time well wasted.

Plus Gina Birch (The Raincoats)

Best known as a founding member of post-punk rock band, The Raincoats, don't miss out and grab your tickets today...

Dr. John Cooper ClarkE - I Wanna Be Yours With Special Guest MIKE GARRY

John Cooper Clarke shot to prominence in the 1970s as the original ‘people’s poet’.

His unique poetry was put to music by producer Martin Hannett and a band of Mancunians The Invisible Girls.Seminal tracks such as Beasley St and Evidently Chickentown featured on the album Snap Crackle and Bop, one of 4 hit 70/80s album releases. JCC became one of the most prolific artists of the Punk years.

His 1980s poetry collection 10 Years in An Open Necked Shirt featuring the lyrics to classic tracks from his albums and more, is one of the UKs biggest selling poetry collections of all time.

Since then his career has spanned cultures, audiences, art forms and continents.

Today he performs purely as a stand up solo poet. His unique poetry show has been touring worldwide for over 15 years.

John's 2018 poetry collection The Luckiest Guy Alive. Features 30 new poems, including the favourites; I've Fallen In Love With My Wife and Get Back on Drugs you Fat F*ck.

Dr John Cooper Clarke's 2019 autobiography, named after his most famous poem

I Wanna Be Yours, (Macmillan), is a groundbreaking piece of literature. JCC goes into fascinating detail about his early life in Manchester leading up to punk superstardom, drug addiction and then the massive comeback as major poet he enjoys today.

Plus special guest Mike Garry

Mike began by reading his own poems to the hundreds of young people who attended his Library Homework Centre. They loved what they heard and encouraged him to perform them at live poetry events and Slams, which he did, instantly winning fans and prizes throughout the UK. His gritty poetry has won admiration far and wide and his collaboration with Joe Duddell and New Order in New Yorks Carnegie Hall in 2014 received five-star reviews.

Championed by Philip Glass for whom Mike has written a libretto that premiered at the 2015 Days and Nights Festival in The Big Sur

Mike has worked in thousands of schools and his three books, Men’s Morning, Mancunian Meander and God is a Manc have become schemes of work in schools throughout the UK and his poetry is regularly heard on BBC Radio and TV. He has read his poems in Prisons, Young Offenders units, Mental Health Hospitals, Children’s Homes, youth clubs and local pubs. He’s passionate about bringing live poetry to places it wouldn’t normally reach and to people who wouldn’t normally listen to it.

His performances are passionate swirling rhythms of thoughts and emotions converted to monologues of quick-fire words.

Brothers Patrick and Gregory Kane formed Hue and Cry in the 80s and the duo made a huge impact with the release of their debut album ‘Seduced and Abandoned’ (1987) which featured their first top ten single ‘Labour of Love’.

The follow up album ‘Remote’ continued the trend and produced the huge hits ‘Looking for Linda’ and ‘Violently’. Albums like ‘Stars Crash Down’, ‘Showtime’ and ‘Jazz Not Jazz’ ensured Hue and Cry’s continued successful run through the 90s, whilst their 2005 appearances as finalists on ITV’s primetime show ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’, featuring their version of Beyoncé’s ‘Crazy In Love’, thrust the band firmly back into the mainstream limelight.

A number of successful album releases and accompanying live appearances followed which included ‘Open Soul’ (2008), ‘Xmasday’ (2009), ‘Bitter Suite Again’ (2010), ‘Hot Wire’ (2011), ‘Remote: Major to Minor’ (2014), ‘September Songs’ (2015), and ‘Pocketful of Stones’ (2017).

To date, Hue and Cry have sold in excess of two million records worldwide. With the global pandemic bringing live touring to a halt during 2020/21, Hue and Cry introduced their pioneering ‘Live from Lockdown’ streaming shows, which were viewed online by thousands of fans around the world.

As well as performing alongside some of the greatest artists in music history – appearing with U2, James Brown, Madonna, Al Green, and Van Morrison to name but a few – the band have undertaken a multitude of their own headline tours and made numerous festival appearances.

Hue and Cry were recently presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Scottish Music Awards. The band are currently working on a brand new album and look forward to bringing their live show to Shoreham.

Front four rows: £28. All rows behind: £25.

This popular, multi award-winning husband and wife duo exude timeless class with their exquisite brand of traditional and contemporary music.

Duos come and duos go… and some nurture and fine tune their art and watch it grow into something totally original and captivating. For over a quarter of a century Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman’s partnership has proved personal, permanent and pivotal.

From early days in folk supergroup ' Equation ' through to their most recent work, acclaimed as ‘Their best yet’, with a nod or two along the way to their extra-curricular musical adventures, the evening promises a whistle-stop tour through their artistic journey to date.

“It’s folk music for the modern age.” – The Telegraph - London

“These guys are something very special”’ – Acoustic Magazine

“A duo right at the top of their game” – Rock n’ Reel

Twice Winners of 'Best Duo' – BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards - 2016 & 2013 

Chris Difford is a Grammy nominated and double Ivor Novello Award winning lyricist who has brought us characters and sketches from everyday life, and has successfully turned the mundane into the beautiful, the urbane into the exquisite, for over 40 years.

Chris has co written some of the most enduring and best-loved songs of our time such as ‘Up The Junction’, ‘Cool For Cats’ and ‘Labelled With Love’, ‘Tempted’ and many others. Squeeze returned with two new albums in recent years 'Cradle to the Grave' in 2015 and ‘The Knowledge’ in 2017.

Chris hosts songwriting retreats and has done so for over 25 years, some in Prisons, some in Rehabs, but mostly in Somerset with the Buddy Holly Foundation at Pennard House. He is one of the country’s most respected songwriters and has co-written with a host of musicians and performers that reads like a veritable who’s who of the music industry.

His autobiography 'Some Fantastic Place' was released in 2017 and found some wonderful praise in the UK press and with fans around the World who recognised his journey into recovery while touring with his friends in Squeeze. The book continues to be part of his solo touring and became the focus of his sell out two week run at the Edinburgh Festival. A stand up show with a bit of sit down.

In 2021 Squeeze did not sand still while the global Pandemic took center stage, they toured in America with Hall and Oates, covering over 23,000 miles and playing to more than 180,000 fans. The year ended with a tour supporting Madness, Chris also took the stage to sing with his mate Jools Holland. Online workshops, Zoom concerts from home raising money for charity totalling £60,000 and Podcasts with his chums in the industry he is a busy bee. Another book? Who knows, another solo record, yes indeed.

This year in 2022 another Squeeze UK tour followed by Christmas Shopping with Chir Difford, a tour to cap the year with joy.

Ian Dury owed his brilliance to no one. But he owed his stardom to The Blockheads’ ~ The Word

Starting out as the band behind Ian Dury, the Blockheads are a legendary outfit that has grown in stature from the late 70s right up to the present day. Rarely off the road since the demise of Ian Dury in 2000, the Blockheads are still one of the most underrated British bands of all time, with a legion of fans of all ages.

Legendary band The Blockheads return to Ropetackle, performing classic hits spanning over five decades including ‘What a Waste’, ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’, ‘Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick’ and ‘Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3’.

Formed in 1977 and originally fronted by lead singer Ian Dury, the band has continued to perform since Ian’s death in 2000. The band still boasts original members Chaz Jankel (guitar and keyboards), Mick Gallagher (keyboards and piano), and John Turnbull (vocals and guitar) alongside new members John Roberts and Nathan King, a rolling line-up of saxophonists, and their new lead vocalist, to be announced.

‘Given the times, those ancient Blockheads sound more here-and-now than anyone’ ~ Uncut

Among the most inventive and influential bands in the history of popular music, 10cc are one of the very few acts to have achieved commercial, critical and creative success in equal measure. 

Testament to 10cc’s ongoing appeal, the band can count a generation straddling array of fellow artists, everyone from Chrissie Hynde to The Feeling’s Dan Gillespie and Axl Rose to Sophie Ellis Bextor, among their many millions of fans. 

I'm Not In Love, written by Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart, features prominently in the soundtrack to the 2014 blockbuster film Guardians of the Galaxy, which grossed $635 million in its first two months in US cinemas and spawned a No 1 album. Meanwhile, a key element of the soundtrack to 2010’s Facebook feature film The Social Network is Dreadlock Holiday, which is also the Sky Sports cricket reports theme in Australia.

10cc has sold more than 30 million albums around the world and the band’s longevity is testament to their timeless songs, and reflecting Gouldman’s status as one of the world’s leading songwriters, he was inducted into America’s Songwriter’s Hall of Fame at a ceremony in New York in June. Previous inductees include Noel Coward, Burt Bacharach, Neil Sedaka, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Elton John and Sting.

The band continues to traverse the globe and play countries as disparate as Iceland and South Africa, Latvia and Japan, as well as across Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the US.

Get ready for a massive concussion of rock and roll with The Dandy Warhols live on stage in Worthing!

The Dandy Warhols are progressing into the next chapter of their self-described “25 year act of sonic rebellion.” 

“We’ve always been driven to create art with emotional clarity,” concludes Taylor-Taylor. “That’s what the world needs more than ever right now. I’ve never felt so strongly that people are losing their minds, and it’s more of them than ever before. Local politics, international politics, news programs, sitcoms, and our president all feel like the heat got turned up. It doesn’t feel like a natural progression of insanity, it just happened. Most people are behaving in a manner that can only be described as batshit crazy.”

With the future stretching out ahead of them, and an impressive back catalogue behind them, 2022 promises to be both a celebration of the past and a glimpse into the unknown of what’s yet to come.

Please note - there's no support act, Rufus plays 2x sets starting at 7:30pm, please arrive early...

The London Times’ 4 star review of his London Palladium show comments “when he unleashes that velvety truffle of a voice…you want it to go on and on.”

Praised by the New York Times for his “genuine originality,” Rufus Wainwright has established himself as one of the great male vocalists, songwriters, and composers of his generation. The New York-born, Montreal-raised singer-songwriter has released ten studio albums to date, three DVDs, and three live albums including the Grammy-nominated Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. He has collaborated with artists such as Elton John, Burt Bacharach, Robert Wilson, David Byrne, Boy George, Joni Mitchell, Pet Shop Boys, Heart, Robbie Williams, Jessye Norman, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Sting, and producer Mark Ronson, among many others. He has written two operas, numerous songs for movies and TV, and is currently working on his first musical. His latest GRAMMY® and JUNO nominated album, Unfollow the Rules, finds Wainwright at the peak of his powers, entering artistic maturity with passion, honesty, and a new-found fearlessness.

Metronomy

Plus support from Folly Group

Metronomy today release their seventh studio album Small World via Because Music. The nine-track project includes the previously released singles ‘It's good to be back’, which confronts the common platitude coming out of the pandemic, and ‘Things will be fine’, that grapples with harnessing hopeful, sunny optimism in the face of difficult situations. The project also follows their previous EP Posse EP Volume 1 released last year.

Small World is an album that sees Metronomy return to simple pleasures, nature, and an embracing in part of more pared down, songwriterly sonics, all while asking broader existential questions: which feels at least somewhat rooted in the period of time during which it was made – 2021. Finding appreciation in nature and our roots, while reappraising the things we value as we get older are all things that are part and parcel of the human experience: though it has all felt accelerated and emphasized in this past year or so. Through the tumultuous ebb and flow of the years, Metronomy continues to endure, and Joe Mount’s ability as a songwriter, arranger and producer shines through on Small World, evergreen.

Listen to Small World 

Metronomy are set to head out on a 47-date European tour next month which begins in Porto, Portugal on March 1st before hitting Madrid, Milan, Warsaw, Paris, Liverpool and Bristol and stops off in London on May 7th for a huge Alexandra Palace show. Support comes from Hak Baker, Goat Girl, Grove, Lynks, Porij, Pongo, NZCA LINES & Sparkling.

“wonderful new album, Small World… captures the strangeness of the past two years: how we learnt to value the simple things — family, friends, nature, leisure — as we grappled with upheaval and fear.” - Sunday Times Culture

“Small World might just have the biggest heart of any Metronomy record yet” - Rolling Stone UK

“The British indie-synth-pop troupe are at their jolliest here, clopping into your happy place on a jaunty Chicago house bassline” - The Guardian

“Metronomy are hitting pause on coy indie electronica and exploring more straightforward, heart-on-sleeve material for their new album ‘Small World’” - NME
"Small World is inhabited by earworms, a sepia-tinged record that recalls loves and summers past... Fittingly, the most joy on Small World is found in its microscopic details, the moments with a precise curatorial touch leaving the best taste in the mouth” - Loud and Quiet

In late 2019, Declan Mckenna headed out to Nashville to record his second album, Zeros, with producer Jay Joyce. By September 2020, he was battling out for a number 1 record with The Rolling Stones.   “Nashville is a great place to record because it’s filled with a lot of creative people and music heads trying to escape LA.”  This idea of a refuge is fitting for Declan, who wanted to be away from the pressures of London or the drab consistency of home, allowing for an intimacy and a desire to explore on this super galactic album that can only really be pursued in a place that is unfamiliar. Zeros is playful, wonderfully strange and intensely musical, but there’s a dark shadow looming throughout. It’s Coors Light and cowboy boots escaping a Silicon Valley dystopia.  

Whilst Declan might have lost that particular battle by a whisker to Jagger and his cohorts on the very last day of sales, it showed just how far Declan had come since his arrival as a slight in stature, big ball of fizzing teenage energy only a few years earlier. The boy most likely to had very quickly become the young man to beat. 

But for all the chart noise and colourful media presence, it’s the music that does the lionshare of the talking. Zeros is a curious, unique and bold record that is teeming with fresh ideas and nods back to eras that have no right to head up the charts in the year 2020. It’s a very British trait to focus on age, but it simply has no right to be conceived by a twenty one year-old who was younger still in its writing.

The unshakeable confidence and boldness of Declan’s voice and the stories he tells allows these songs to truly land; setting the tone for a world-building album, and this new world builds just as the world we know ends. His expansive, experimental structures and loss of inhibitions builds more than just a world but the entire sky and all the stars within it. These tracks and their characters are in constant conversation, they are subtly self-referencing, mature, complex and at times life-affirming but always unafraid to laugh… and Declan Mckenna is laughing hysterically as he pushes the big red button. 

“Unstoppable Gen Z Icon” – The Big Issue

“The wonder boy of British Music” - Attitude

“A brilliant second album from indie’s boy wonder”  – ★★★★★ DORK

“Spaced-out storytelling from an indie wunderkind…a delight” – ★★★★ Q Magazine

“Star-spangled and confident AF… ‘Zeros’ is a lot of fun” – ★★★★ DIY Magazine

“McKenna’s future looks intriguing…the work of an artist broadening his scope” - ★★★★ The Guardian

“Electric, entertaining and thought-provoking” – ★★★★ NME

“McKenna is to Bowie what Sam Fender is to Bruce Springsteen” – ★★★★ Evening Standard

“Declan is proving a rare talent to watch” – ★★★★ Daily Star

“Zeros is the sound of an artist pushing his creative development, and enjoying himself as he does so. Exciting stuff” – ★★★★The Independent

+ Will Joseph Cook

Barenaked Ladies

+ Boothby Graffoe

Over the course of their remarkable career, Barenaked Ladies have sold over 15 million albums, written multiple top 20 hits (including radio staples “One Week,” “Pinch Me,” “If I Had $1,000,000”), garnered 2 GRAMMY nominations, won 8 JUNO Awards, had Ben & Jerry’s name an ice cream after them (“If I Had 1,000,000 Flavours”), participated in the first-ever “space-to-earth musical collaboration” with astronaut Chris Hadfield, and garnered an international fan base whose members number in the millions. In 2018, the band were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and Toronto Mayor John Tory declared October 1st “Barenaked Ladies Day.”

Known for their tremendous hits and incredible live shows, the band has continued to grow their international following for over 30 years and experienced a whirlwind of successes throughout this last year.

In May, nearly a dozen years after executive producers Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady asked BNL to compose a theme song for a new show they’d created called “The Big Bang Theory,” the multi-platinum band was invited back for the historic series finale.  Lead singer/guitarist Ed Robertson recorded a special acoustic rendition for the momentous occasion. The band also performed the theme song that night on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.  “Our association with the show is something we’re all very proud of,” said Robertson, “And being involved in so many fun ways as the show draws to a close is really cool. The chance to play the song on ‘The Late Show’ with the whole cast present is a lovely bookend to an incredible run.” 

That same week, BNL followed up their stylistically adventurous 2017 studio album Fake Nudes, with the release of a digital EP, Fake Nudes: Naked. The EP featured 8 new acoustic renditions of songs from Fake Nudes, giving the collection of tracks a fresh folk-tinged sound that makes listeners feel like they’re at a special, intimate live performance.  

The group recently released a brand new vinyl-exclusive album, Original Hits, Original Stars. This greatest hits collection includes their iconic “Big Bang Theory Theme,” which makes its first ever appearance on vinyl, as well as the aforementioned hits, in addition to classic favorites like “The Old Apartment” and “It’s All Been Done.” The vinyl edition captures the quintessential selection for fans, offering them a quality sound that deserves to be heard on a record player, coming just in time for the holiday season. 

When it comes to making timeless songs, like many of those on Original Hits, Original Stars, Robertson attributes it to their group’s connection as musicians. “The diversity that’s always been a hallmark of this band is really liberating when we’re making records, because we never feel restricted to a certain sound. It’s way more malleable than that: whatever sound we all create together, that’s Barenaked Ladies.” 

Through the years, the band has endlessly proved their undeniable power as a live act, with each set propelled by their chemistry. Only a couple months ago, they wrapped up a summer-long North American tour with Hootie and the Blowfish to rave reviews, including Billboard who wrote, “Barenaked Ladies may have opened the show, but its headliner status was undeniable.” The ‘Group Therapy Tour’ took them to major markets throughout North America including legendary venues such as New York’s Madison Square Garden, The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, and Toronto’s Budweiser Stage. The Billboard Live Music Summit recently acknowledged the success of the tour, giving it their inaugural “Tour of the Summer” award.

Now, with 2020 on the horizon, BNL have a jam-packed year in mind, with many more surprise announcements to come. They’ve already started work on what will be their sixteenth studio album, and just announced UK tour dates beginning the end of March.