It’s been a busy few days as far tour announcements go and this week’s winner has faced some steep competition from the various bands that have been revealing new live dates for the next few months. One of the main ones, of course, is the new tour from Liam Gallagher’s Beady Eye. Everyone’s eagerly awaiting February’s release of their debut album ‘Different Gear, Still Speeding’ to find out what Liam can do without big brother Noel. Their live dates in March and April are sure to add some extra excitement to all the hype. Then there’s the confirmation of a huge post-Libertines’ reunion tour from Mr Pete Doherty himself, as well as more dates from hotly-tipped Slough indie-rockers Brother.
So, as you can see, it wasn’t an easy choice. However, this week’s Tour of the Week goes to the huge reformation announcement from Mick Jones’s Big Audio Dynamite. The confirmation of Jones’s reunion with the band’s original line-up will come as great news for fans that followed his move from The Clash to Big Audio Dynamite in the early ‘80s. The new tour dates will also please anyone that has been a fan of the band’s more recent incarnations.
After seven years in The Clash, guitarist and co-founder Mick Jones was fired from the band in 1983 and quickly went on to form supergroup General Public with former members of The Beat, The Specials and Dexys Midnight Runners. However, he left General Public before the release of their debut album and founded Big Audio Dynamite the following year. The original line-up of BAD, consisting of Jones, Leo Williams, Greg Roberts, Dan Donavan and legendary punk DJ Don Letts, recorded four albums together between 1985 and 1990. During Jones’s time in The Clash, Letts played a key role in the evolution of punk rock music, mixing both punk and reggae into his DJ sets, which proved to be a huge influence on The Clash’s sound. This was also arguably one of the inspirations behind Jones’s and Letts’s formation of BAD, who were widely credited for blending together a number of musical styles including hip-hop, dance and funk.
For the band’s second album ‘No. 10, Upping St’, Mick Jones managed to patch up his differences with former bandmate Joe Strummer, who co-produced the album as well as co-writing a number of its songs. The original line-up of BAD released their final album ‘Megatop Phoenix’ in 1989, after which time Jones recruited some new members and renamed the group Big Audio Dynamite II. His former bandmates Williams, Roberts and Donavan went on to form Dreadzone.
In 1997, Jones recorded his last album with Big Audio Dynamite, the independent, download-only release ‘Entering a New Ride’. He has since gone on to front the group Carbon/Silicon, as well as producing albums for Pete Doherty’s bands The Libertines and Babyshambles and playing guitar for Gorillaz.
Last year, BAD released the 25th anniversary Legacy Edition of their debut album ‘This is Big Audio Dynamite’. Around the same time, Don Letts told Billboard.com: “I've got to admit that in the past, I'm not a great one for reformations. I always think if you're lucky in life, you get a window of opportunity, use it to the best of your ability and then f*ck off and let someone else have their turn. But here I am 25 years down the line considering the thing.”
Big Audio Dynamite will play the following dates:
March 2011
Tues 29th - Liverpool O2 Academy
Wed 30th - Glasgow O2 ABC
Thurs 31st - Newcastle O2 Academy
April 2011
Sat 2nd - London, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
Sun 3rd - London, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
Weds 6th - Nottingham Rock City
Thurs 7th - Leeds O2 Academy
Fri 8th - Manchester Academy
Sat 9th - Bristol O2 Academy
Sat 16th - Coachella Festival
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