Bleachers announce one-off UK show for June
Jack Antonoff's synth-poppers will play London on June 7
By Joe Goggins
Bleachers have announced details of a new UK date for 2022.
The New York City indie pop outfit, led by production supremo Jack Antonoff, will play a one-off date in London at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on June 7, in support of last year’s third full-length, ‘Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night’.
Tickets are available through a mailing list pre-sale now; they go on general sale here on Friday (March 4) at 10am. The gig comes just days before the band play the second weekend of Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona.
Antonoff is best known to the wider world for his work as a producer on some of the biggest pop albums of recent years, and in particular for his close collaboration with Taylor Swift, having worked with her on all six of her studio albums since 2014’s ‘1989’, as well as on her re-recorded versions of ‘Fearless’ and ‘Red’. He’s also produced for Lana Del Rey, Lorde and St. Vincent.
Still, under the Bleachers name, he’s found time for three studio albums since 2014, with the latest meeting with a mixed critical reception on release last July. Antonoff has already revealed plans for a fourth record to follow quickly, tweeting on New Year’s Day: “i am going to put out a bleachers album this year”.
No further updates have been offered since, but Bleachers will head out on a U.S. tour in June and July with an impressive array of openers, including Allison Ponthier, Wolf Alice, Charly Bliss, Beabadoobee, The Lemon Twigs and Blu DeTiger.
Antonoff also hit the headlines earlier this year for condemning Damon Albarn’s controversial comments about Taylor Swift, calling them “Trumpian.” After a Los Angeles Times interview with the Blur frontman quoted him as saying that Swift “doesn’t write her own songs,”, a claim that is demonstrably untrue, the Bleachers man waded in to defend her on Consequence’s ‘The What’ podcast, calling her “one of the greatest songwriters of our generation.”
“I don’t like it when artists take almost this Trumpian approach of just making things up,” he said. “I don’t care if Damon Albarn or anyone likes or doesn’t like something, but to unequivocally make a statement that isn’t true… not to get too deep on it, but isn’t that kind of everything that’s wrong with our world at the moment? People talking about shit that they have no clue about?”