Billy Bragg‘s 2019 U.S. tour, entitled “One Step Forward. Two Steps Back,” has already begun to sell out with tickets for his three-night stand in Seattle completely gone. Limited quantities remain for the rest of the tour.
At each stop, Bragg will perform three unique shows over as many nights. The first performance will feature Bragg’s current set, which ranges across his 35 year career. The second performance will see Bragg perform songs from his first three albums: his punk-charged debut Life’s a Riot with Spy Vs Spy (1983), its similarly utilitarian follow-up Brewing Up with Billy Bragg (1984) and Talking with the Taxman about Poetry (1986). The third performance will see Bragg perform songs from his second three albums: the positively jangled Workers Playtime (1988), pop classic Don’t Try This at Home (1991) and the back-to-basics William Bloke (1996). Prior to the launch of the tour Bragg will perform along with Jason Isbell, Emmylou Harris, Dawes and others as part of the February, 2019 Cayamo Cruise.
After 35 years of travelling around America in a van, or spending day after day flying vast distances to play a gig, I’m looking forward to having some time to explore cities that I usually only get to see between the soundcheck and the show. And this three night stand format is a way of keeping things interesting, both for me and the audience. I tried it out in Toronto last year and had a lot of fun revisiting my back pages. – Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg has been a fearless recording artist, tireless live performer and peerless political campaigner for over 35 years. Politicized by a Tory government operating without love or justice, this previously adrift young man from Barking, England, whose failure at national exams had reduced his career opportunities to two, eventually bought himself out of the British Army in 1981 (‘the best £175 I ever spent’), determined to make a living out of song.
Governments rise and fall, fashions come and go, pop stars are built up and knocked down by a fickle media, and Billy Bragg adapts to survive: the one-time Luddite and failed handyman has embraced New Media and engages with fans directly via Facebook and Twitter, uploading songs when a headline strikes. His enemies remain essentially the same: craven politicians, inhumane corporations, plus assorted racists, fascists, bullies, reactionaries and people with floppy fringes.
Don’t miss the orator, entertainer, rabble-rouser, negotiator, pamphleteer, the fabled ‘Bard of Barking,’ Billy Bragg, across three extraordinary evenings.
Tour trailer video here.
Photos here.
Billy Bragg 2019 U.S. Tour
2/12 – 2/17 – Cayamo Cruise
2/22 – 2/24 – The Troubadour – Los Angeles, CA
2/28 – 3/2 – Tractor Tavern – Tacoma, WA
4/18 – 4/20 – Fine Line – Minneapolis, MN
4/25 – 4/27 – Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL
9/19 – 9/21 – The Birchmere – Alexandria, VA
9/26 – 9/28 – The Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY
10/3 – 10/5 –The Sinclair – Boston, MA
About Billy Bragg:
Billy Bragg has been a fearless recording artist, tireless live performer and peerless political campaigner for over 35 years. Among the former Saturday boy’s albums are his punk-charged debut Life’s a Riot With Spy Vs Spy, the more love-infused Workers Playtime, pop classic Don’t Try This At Home, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee-timed treatise on national identity England, Half-English, and his stripped-down tenth, Tooth & Nail, his most successful since the early 90s. The intervening three decades have been marked by a number one hit single, having a street named after him, being the subject of a South Bank Show, appearing onstage at Wembley Stadium, curating Left Field at Glastonbury, sharing spotted dick with a Cabinet minister in the House of Commons cafeteria, being mentioned in Bob Dylan’s memoir and meeting the Queen. At their best, Billy’s songs present ‘the perfect Venn diagram between the political and the personal’ (the Guardian). Bragg has recently added best-selling author/musicologist to his CV with the success of his acclaimed 2017 book ‘Roots, Radicals & Rockers – How Skiffle Changed The World’.