The Coral announce December UK shows

NME

The Coral have announced a run of UK shows in December.

• READ MORE: The Coral talk new single ‘Wild Bird’ and recruiting Cillian Murphy and John Simm for two albums

The Wirral band are set to play four shows kicking off at Glasgow’s Barrowland on December 1 before calling at Liverpool Olympia, London’s Electric Ballroom and wrapping up at Manchester’s New Century Hall on December 9.

Support will come from Gruff Rhys on the Glasgow and Liverpool dates, with Iraina Mancini supporting in Manchester only. A guest for the London concert will be revealed in due course.

Tickets for all dates go on general sale at 9.30am BST this Friday (September 15) and a presale will also be held at the same time Thursday (14). Tickets can be purchased here and you can view the full list of dates below.

Those who have already ordered a copy of ‘Sea of Mirrors’ or ‘Holy Joe's Coral Island Medicine Show’ from the official store will automatically qualify for the pre-sale.

Tickets go on general sale at 9:30am on Friday 15th September from https://t.co/qOnUGyixkT pic.twitter.com/UvjEnmK7Cg

— The Coral (@thecoralband) September 11, 2023

The gigs are their first indoor shows since 2022 and follow the release of their two new albums ‘Sea Of Mirrors’ and ‘Holy Joe’s Coral Island Medicine Show’ which came out last Friday (September 8).

They are in addition to the band’s 2024 shows which kick off in Chester on March 8 before wrapping up in Lytham on April 20.

The Coral’s full list of tour dates are as follows:

DECEMBER 2023

1 – Glasgow Barrowland
2 – Liverpool Olympia
7 – London Electric Ballroom
9 – Manchester New Century Hall

MARCH 2024

8 – Chester StoryHouse
9 – Coventry Warwick Arts Centre
10 – Brighton Komedia
22 – Leicester Y Theatre
23 – Milton Keynes  Stables
24 – Sale Waterside
29 – Lichfield Garrick
30 – London Union Chapel
12 – Halifax Square Chapel
13 – Workington Carnegie Theatre
19 – Whitley Bay Playhouse
20 – Lytham Lowther Pavilion

The band’s new albums feature Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy and Life On Mars lead actor John Simm.

Speaking to NME about the unlikely team-up with the former, The Coral frontman James Skelly recalled: “[LP co-producer] Sean [O’Hagan] was like, ‘Oh I know someone. I did his first film. He might be good – Cillian Murphy’ and I was like ‘What? One of the best actors in the world?’ And then Cillian Murphy just emailed and was like, ‘Ah, yeah I love the band, I’m up for helping you out.’

“Then we just had a conversation about what it was going to be, because we needed help with it. We were speaking about books we liked and films and how you build a character. He went away and thought about the character and tried different things.”

He continued: “He just sent what he did for the album and said it should be like an old sort of American actor like Bella Lugosi or Buster Keaton. The idea was these massive stars ended up in these B-movies. And they were like, ‘Where is my life?’ That’s the idea, this internal thing of, ‘How did I get here?’ He just nailed it and we put it in the track and put some reverb on it. We were like ‘Nice one Cillian, thanks a lot, you put the cherry on top.'”

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