Squeeze
South-London legends Squeeze have announced an extensive UK tour for late 2017, including a performance at Brighton Dome Concert Hall. This follows the success of their North American tour in 2016 and the incredible reception to their latest album Cradle To The Grave. The band are currently working on a new album for 2017.
The band has long been a captivating live act, and this year triumphed on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury with The Guardian saying they '[went] down a storm… Squeeze’s success is a pretty infectious thing' and Acoustic magazine concluding that 'they don’t have the bombastic hype of headliners Coldplay, but they have the songcraft and lyrical majesty to leave the headliners in the dust which they duly did.'
As well as a vast catalogue including hits such as Cool For Cats, Up The Junction and Tempted, they also have Cradle To The Grave to draw on, their first collection of new tracks since 1998. This album marked the complete and, frankly, triumphant reintegration of the masterful songwriting axis of Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, in a beautifully-observed series of fond vignettes about childhood, growing up and the absurdities of the ride through life we’re all on. The live band now features a six-piece line up with Chris and Glenn joined by Simon Hanson (drums), Lucy Shaw (bass), Stephen Large (keyboards) and Melvin Duffy (guitar and various instruments).
The group first formed in 1973, shortly after Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook had begun their songwriting partnership, brought together by an ad in a sweetshop window. By 1977 they had made their recording debut and enjoyed a string of hits which lasted until 1982, the maturity of their songs outliving their initial burst of chart activity on the back of New Wave. Over the years there have been solo careers and occasional separations, but the Ivor Novello Award-winning songwriting duo Chris and Glenn reunited nine years ago to relaunch Squeeze and have been touring, writing and recording together since.