PAUL HEATON & JACQUI ABBOTT announce a series of Irish tour dates for February 2023

Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott

Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott have announced a series of Irish tour dates to take place in February 2023 – including The Millennium Forum Derry and The SSE Arena, Belfast.

Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott’s new album ‘N.K-Pop’ is released on 7th October. They have already made two songs available from the album – the poignant ballad ‘Still’, which was described as ‘beautifully heartbreaking’ by Dawn French, and the gospel pop song ‘Too Much For One (Not Enough For Two). Paul & Jacqui’s previous album ‘Manchester Calling’ went straight to No 1 on its release in March ’20.

Paul Heaton’s songwriting genius was recognised at the prestigious Ivor Awards 2022, where noted author/radio DJ Stuart Maconie presented him with a long overdue gong for ‘Outstanding Song Collection’. Heaton is one of the UK’s most successful songwriters, with some 15 million album sales under his belt.

He first came to prominence in the early 80s as frontman of The Housemartins (the same group that gave us Norman ‘Fatboy Slim’ Cook). The Housemartins released two albums, ‘London 0 Hull 4’ (’86) and ‘The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death’ (’87). In ’88, Heaton formed The Beautiful South, who released ten hugely successful albums – ‘Welcome To The Beautiful South’ (’89), Choke (’90), ‘0898 Beautiful South’ (’92), ‘Miaow’ (’94), ‘Blue Is The Colour’ (’96), ‘Quench’ (’98), ‘Painting It Red’ (2000), ‘Gaze’ (’03), ‘Golddiggas, Headnodders & Pholk Songs’ (’04) and ‘Superbi’ (’06).

In 2001 Heaton took a break from The Beautiful South and released his first solo album ‘Fat Chance’. The Beautiful South called it a day in 2007, citing ‘musical similarities’. Jacqui Abbott was the lead vocalist in The Beautiful South from ’94 to 2000, and she sang many of their signature hits, including ‘Rotterdam’, ‘Perfect 10’, ‘Don’t Marry Her’ and ‘Dream A Little Dream’. Paul Heaton went on to release two further solo albums: ‘The Cross-Eyed Rambler’ (’08) and ‘Acid Country’ (’10).

In 2011 Heaton wrote a musical called ‘The 8th’ based on the Seven Deadly Sins and asked Jacqui to sing one of the parts. They have since released four acclaimed albums as a duo: ‘What Have We Become’ (’14), ‘Wisdom, Laughter and Lines’ (’15), ‘Crooked Calypso’ (’17) and ‘Manchester Calling’ (’20). In 2019 Paul released a career-spanning compilation of his biggest hits entitled ‘The Last King Of Pop’.

2022 saw Heaton reach a significant birthday, which he celebrated in typically idiosyncratic style by putting £1,000 behind the bar of 60 carefully chosen pubs across the UK and Ireland so that fans could have a drink on him.

The full list of shows is:

FEBRUARY

17 DUBLIN: 3Arena

18 GALWAY: Leisureland

19 BALLYBOFEY: Balor Arts Centre

21 DERRY: The Millennium Forum

22 BELFAST: The SSE Arena

24 KILLARNEY: Gleneagle INEC Arena

Tickets are on sale Friday 7 October at 10 am via www.ticketmaster.ie & www.millenniumforum.co.uk

PAUL HEATON & JACQUI ABBOTT

 

Xsnoize Author
Mark Millar is the founder of XS Noize and looks after the daily running of the website as well as hosting interviews for the weekly XS Noize Podcast. Mark's favourite album is Achtung Baby by U2.

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