Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott, who have just completed a triumphant sell out tour around the UK (including 3 free shows for NHS and care workers), have announced two very special stadium shows for next summer at St Helens Totally Wicked Stadium, a hometown show for Jacqui, on Friday July 22 and Doncaster’s Keepmoat Stadium on Saturday July 23. Special guests on both shows will be The Proclaimers and The Lathums.
The shows are as follows:
Friday July 22 ST HELENS Totally Wicked Stadium
Saturday July 23 DONCASTER Keepmoat Stadium
Tickets priced at a mere £35.00 (plus booking fees) go on sale at 9:30am on Friday November 26 from gigsandtours.com / ticketmaster.co.uk
Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott’s fourth studio album ‘Manchester Calling’ which was released in March 2020, entered the UK official album chart at No.1, Paul & Jacqui’s first No.1 album as a duo. As members of the Beautiful South, they reached the No.1 slot in the albums chart three times with Carry On Up The Charts: The Best Of (‘94), Blue Is The Colour (’96), and Quench (’98).
Paul Heaton, one of the UK’s most consistently successful songwriters with some 15 million album sales under his belt, first came to public attention in the early 80s as front man of Hull-based indie poppers The Housemartins (the same group that spawned Norman ‘Fatboy Slim’ Cook), best known for their third single ‘Happy Hour’ and their No.1 acapella Isley Bros cover ‘Caravan Of Love’.
The Housemartins released two albums ‘London 0 Hull 4’ (’86) and ‘The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death’ (’87). In ’88 Heaton formed The Beautiful South, who released 10 hugely successful albums - ‘Welcome To The Beautiful South’ (’89), Choke (’90), ‘0898 Beautiful South’ (’92), ‘Miaow’ (’94), ‘Blue Is The Colour’ (’96), ‘Quench’ (’98), ‘Painting It Red’ (2000), ‘Gaze’ (’03), ‘Golddiggas, Headnodders & Pholk Songs’ (’04) and ‘Superbi’ (’06).
In 2001 Heaton took a break from The Beautiful South and released his first solo album ‘Fat Chance’. The Beautiful South called it a day in 2007 citing ‘musical similarities’.
Jacqui Abbott was lead vocalist in The Beautiful South from ’94 to 2000 and she sang many of their signature hits including ‘Rotterdam’, ‘Perfect 10’, ‘Don’t Marry Her’ and ‘Dream A Little Dream’.
Paul Heaton went on to release two further solo albums: ‘The Cross-Eyed Rambler’ (’08) and ‘Acid Country’ (’10). In 2011 Heaton wrote a musical called ‘The 8th’ based on the Seven Deadly Sins and asked Jacqui to sing one of the parts. They have since released four acclaimed albums as a duo: ‘What Have We Become’ (’14),‘Wisdom, Laughter and Lines’ (’15), ‘Crooked Calypso’ (’17) and ‘Manchester Calling’ (’20).