On the back of last year’s sold-out run of intimate underplay gigs, Reverend & The Makers recently announced a 13-date nationwide UK tour, which includes a date at Chalk in Brighton. The tour will be kicking off from 11th and running until 28th November.
Reverend &The Makers UK Tour Dates:
Nov 11 Birmingham O2 Institute
Nov 13 Glasgow SWG3 TV Studio
Nov 14 Newcastle Northumbria University SU
Nov 16 Leeds Beckett SU
Nov 17 Cardiff Tramshed
Nov 19 London Electric Ballroom
Nov 20 Brighton Chalk
Nov 21 Oxford O2 Academy
Nov 23 Northampton Roadmender
Nov 24 Norwich Waterfront
Nov 26 Nottingham Rock City
Nov 27 Manchester Academy
Nov 28 Bristol Electric
Tickets for all Reverend & The Makers concerts can be located HERE.
Reverend & The Makers comprise Jon McClure (lead singer), Thomas Dibb (guitar), Laura McClure (keys/vocals), Antonia Pooles (bass), and Adam Crofts (drums). The forthcoming tour is in support of their recent album, ‘Is This How Happiness Feels?’, which dropped on 8th May. This followed the Top 10 success of 2023’s ‘Heatwave In The Cold North’. The latest 13-track record sees Jon McClure at his most vulnerable and musically ambitious.
Last August, Reverend & The Makers marked two decades together with their most ambitious headline show yet—a massive homecoming set for 30,000 fans at Sheffield’s Rock N Roll Circus.
‘Is This How Happiness Feels?’ was produced by Danny Lafrombé and Jon McClure and witnesses the Sheffield five piece at arguably their most musically accomplished yet, merging vintage, sparkling, life-affirming soul with contemporary lyrical storytelling.
“This album has been a labour of love owing to personal reasons but has emerged as a joyous triumph,” says frontman Jon McClure. “It’s easily the best thing we’ve ever done and will surprise a few people too.” The album features previously released singles ‘Late Night Phone Call’, ‘Haircut’ featuring Vicky McClure, ‘UFO’ and ‘Twenty-Seven Past Midnight’.
Reverend & The Makers’ seventh studio album, ‘Heatwave In The Cold North’ hit No. 6 on the Official Charts in 2023, giving the band a remarkable unbroken streak of seven Top 20 albums to their name. This marked their first Top 10 album since their 2007 debut, ‘The State Of Things’, which reached No.5, and also delivered their biggest single in over a decade. For the record ‘Is This How Happiness Feels?’ also secured a Top 10 place, No.7 to be precise!
Copies of ‘Is This How Happiness Feels?’ can be purchased HERE.
We last caught up with Reverend & The Makers at last year’s Victorious Festival on 24th August. Our account read thus:
REVEREND & THE MAKERS – Castle Stage (18:35pm – 19:16pm)
After a break, I returned to the Castle Stage in good time to see Reverend & The Makers. Once again, I was lucky enough to find a position near the front, just one row behind the barrier separating the crowd from the photographers’ pit. This was the first time I had seen the Sheffield band perform live.
Three minutes before they entered the stage, the fanfare of the Rocky theme tune ‘Gonna Fly Now’ was blasted out of the speakers. The band arrived on stage and started with the 2012 track ‘Baseline’, with frontman Jon McClure welcoming the large crowd with “We are Reverend and the Makers, we came to rock the house”.
They then performed ‘Open Your Window’ from their debut album, 2007’s ‘The State Of Things’. The crowd were thrilled and started bouncing. Jon said “Banger after banger” and true to his words this is what we got for the entire set. ‘Shine The Light’ is next and Jon joins in with the bouncing.
He then says “Sheffield is outnumbered as we even have two southerners in the band now. We should have been massive but I cocked it up. We had a bad 2010s but now there’s a renaissance, although it’s a Radio 2 renaissance”. A much newer song was performed next. This is ‘Heatwave In The Cold North’, which is a groovy track and has a different feel to the other songs in the set.
Next, it’s time for the song everyone has been waiting to hear and the band’s only top ten single ‘Heavyweight Champion Of The World’. The crowd go into a frenzy for this one. The recent single ‘Haircut’ that features actress Vicky McClure (no relation) on the recorded version was next. Jon followed this with “Banger after banger”.
The set continued with ‘Out Of The Shadows’, then Jon took off his tie and started swinging it in the air during the popular sing-a-long track ‘He Said He Loved Me’. The final song was the psychedelic-sounding ‘Silence Is Talking’. This ended in a mash-up with The Beatles song ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. (Ian Holman)
