Following a successful 2014 tour, Ray Laidlaw and Billy Mitchell will be telling the story of Tyneside’s favourite band again across the UK and Ireland in 2015.
In a two-man acoustic show, the pair perform classic Lindisfarne songs illustrated with tales, personal archive photographs and rare video.
Founding member and original drummer Laidlaw and Mitchell, frontman for the final eight years of the veteran group, share the inside story of the group’s rise to fame – from Whitley Bay to San Francisco Bay, from Rothbury to Glastonbury.
Lindisfarne burst onto the UK music scene in 1970 with a string of classic tunes, including Lady Eleanor, Meet Me On The Corner, Fog On The Tyne and Run For Home, which quickly established the band as one of the leading figures in acoustic-based rock.
Laidlaw says: “In 1971, we took the music business by storm, and for the next thirty years we shared Lindisfarne’s unique brand of Geordie rock and roll with the world.”
The pair adds: “There’s lots of tales to tell: the first hit record, the six bob tour, the Top Of The Pops fish, banned by the BBC, the Christmas shows, the platinum album, banned by Brighton council, the onstage pub, stranded in New Zealand, the reunion shows, banned by The National Trust, and a record 140 shows at Newcastle City Hall.”
In 2012, the band issued a 40th anniversary vinyl edition of their breakthrough 1971 sophomore album, Fog On The Tyne, which topped the UK charts on its way to becoming one of the top 10 biggest-selling British albums of 1972.
The 2015 tour of The Lindisfarne Story opens with a pair of dates next month - February 27 at Dublin’s Sugar Club and February 28 at Limelight 2 in Belfast – and returns for an extended autumn run starting in September.
A full list of tour dates is available at lindisfarnestory.co.uk
