Joan Armatrading at Birmingham Town Hall

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Mon 10 Sep 2018 - Mon 29 Oct 2018

When Joan Armatrading last took to the road in 2015 she announced it was to be her last big world tour. Totalling 235 gigs, it was a massive undertaking but Joan's a performer and never intended to quit touring altogether – just not be on the road for months at a time.

This autumn she is playing just 33 UK and Irish dates, including a hometown gig at Birmingham Town Hall on September 20.



Commenting on the tour, Joan says: "I was never going to quit live work completely, and I'll certainly never retire. But I won't be doing a two-year tour again!"

The autumn gigs will be very much a solo venture. There will be no band, just Joan talking, playing and taking her audience on a musical journey through her catalogue, old and new. Her dynamic guitar work – she was the first UK female artist ever to go straight to the top of the Billboard Blues Charts – and her distinctive vocals will be very much to the fore.



She promises to play her big hits, including Love And Affection, the song that first made her famous around the world 42 years ago."I always play that song; why wouldn't I?" she says. "My fans want to hear it and if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be where I am today so, of course, it'll always be in my set. But I'm on stage for a good while so I'll be playing some of the other hits as well, along with material from the recent albums."



Her latest album, her 21st, was released in May, 2018. Titled Not Too Far Away, it features 10 tracks, including the single Loving What You Hate which deals with the common problem of self-doubt.

Joan says: "There are lots of people who will say 'I hate how I'm looking in this dress' or they've always got something to hate about themselves. Meanwhile, everybody's thinking 'You look fantastic.' So I wanted to write about that because you see that so often and it might be quite nice for people to think 'Oh, actually it's alright, somebody loves me for whoever I am'."



**Joan Armatrading 2018 UK and Ireland tour dates:

September 10 & 11: Stables, Milton Keynes;
September 12: Palace Theatre, Westcliff On Sea;
September 13: Barbican, London;
September 14: Lighthouse, Poole;
September 16: Dome, Brighton;
September 17 & 18: Northcott Theatre, Exeter;
September 19: Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury;
September 20: Town Hall, Birmingham;
September 21: Philharmonic, Liverpool;
September 23: Opera House, York;
September 24: Concert Hall, Glasgow;
September 25: Usher Hall, Edinburgh;
September 26: Sage, Gateshead;
September 28: New Theatre, Oxford;
September 29: Concert Hall, Stevenage;
September 30: Bridgewater Hall, Manchester;
October 1: New Theatre, Hull;
October 2: Corn Exchange, Cambridge;
October 4: Shanklin Theatre, Isle of Wight;
October 5: De La Warr, Bexhill On Sea;
October 8 & 9: The Apex, Bury St Edmunds;
October 10: Arena, St Albans;
October 11: Opera House, Buxton;
October 12: Belgrade Theatre, Coventry;
October 14: Anvil, Basingstoke;
October 15: G Live, Guildford;
October 16: St David's Hall, Cardiff;
October 28: Vicar Street, Dublin;
October 29: Ulster Hall, Belfast.**

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!date 10/09/2018 -- 29/10/2018
%wnbirmingham