A few weeks ago, we made Ocean Colour Scene our Stereoboard Tour of the Week for their forthcoming ‘Moseley Shoals’ 15th anniversary dates. Now it’s time for another group of Britpop survivors, although these ones have decided to call it a day. That’s right, it’s The Bluetones. After seventeen years, six albums and thirteen Top 40 singles, this London quartet have announced that their tour in September will be their last. Earlier this week, the band’s MySpace page read: “We're afraid the time has come and we must say farewell. We will be playing a career-spanning set of songs as a way to say thank you to our loyal supporters and hopefully signing off with a bit of a bang. We hope we'll see you all in September.”
The Bluetones released what now appears to be their final album early last year. However, despite a number of positive reviews, ‘A New Athens’ failed to earn the band much commercial success. Unfortunately, the same could also be said of every Bluetones’ release since 2000’s ‘Science and Nature’ – their third album and their last to make it into the Top 10. However, in spite of this dwindling popularity over the past eleven years, the indie-rock four-piece refused to let it get them down and continued to make music and tour for their ever-faithful fans.
For those of you that missed the Britpop era during the mid-90s, The Bluetones’ heyday began in 1995 upon the release of their earliest singles ‘Are You Blue or Are You Blind?’ and the self-titled ‘Bluetonic’, both of which were minor Top 40 hits. However, their real primetime came the following year, when they released their debut album. On entering the charts, ‘Expecting to Fly’ knocked ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?’ from the top spot for one week only, making it one of Britpop’s defining albums. Its lead single ‘Slight Return’ – still their most well-known and loved track – was also a huge success, although their one chance at Number One was scuppered by the Levis-flogging, one-hit wonder that was Babylon Zoo’s ‘Spaceman’.
After the success of ‘Expecting to Fly’, The Bluetones went on to have another hit with their second album ‘Return to the Last Chance Saloon’, which included the Top 10 single ‘Solomon Bites the Worm’. Prior to this, they released the standalone single ‘Marblehead Johnson’ in 1996. Although no direct reference has ever been confirmed, this track’s title was also the name of the band that featured US comedian Bill Hicks, who had passed away two years earlier.
Unlike many of their Britpop contemporaries, some of whom have since made slight returns of their own, The Bluetones haven’t taken any time-out or hiatus during their eighteen years together. However, on the 15th anniversary of their most crucial album, which was released the same year as Ocean Colour Scene’s ‘Moseley Shoals’, the band will be playing all the old favourites one last time.
September Tour Dates:
Yeovil Orange Box (3)
Cardiff Millennium Music Hall (5)
Reading Sub89 (6)
Brighton Concorde 2 (7)
Southampton The Brook (8)
Manchester Club Academy (10)
Glasgow O2 ABC (11)
Newcastle O2 Academy (12)
Sheffield O2 Academy 2 (13)
Liverpool O2 Academy 2 (15)
London O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire (16)
Leeds Cockpit (17)
Bournemouth O2 Academy (18)
Oxford O2 Academy 2 (20)
Bristol O2 Academy (21)
Birmingham O2 Academy 2 (22)
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