Ben Howard celebrates ten years of his critically acclaimed UK number one, second album, “ I Forget Where We Were ” with a 13-date live run of the UK in the Autumn.
The tour marks the first time Ben has revisited an album retrospectively, and will perform it through in its entirety. Fans can also expect live performances of songs from around the album’s initial release, including b-sides and rarities.
Arriving in 2014, and following the overwhelming triumph of Ben’s debut LP, ‘Every Kingdom’, ‘I Forget Where We Were’ signalled almost a complete volte-face in sound and temperament. Where the charts were overwhelmingly welcoming acoustic instruments and a purity that Every Kingdom managed to encapsulate beautifully, I Forget Where We Were signalled the stark arrival something far stormier and shrouded in darkness and atmosphere. But if there was a suspicion that this record might dumbfound Ben’s young fanbase (who had bought into Every Kingdom to the tune of almost 1 million sales), it was blown out of the water with its follow-up, debuting at the top of UK album charts and providing a stage for Ben to tour to bigger crowds than ever, including three sell out shows at London’s Alexandra Palace.
Right at the heart of the record is its epic title track, a song which, like the album its lifted from, more than stands the testament of time. When Ben unexpectedly dropped it into his headline set at London’s Royal Albert Hall last year (to welcome his fifth studio album, Is It?), it shook the historic venue to its very foundations, as did the crowd’s reaction to its opening chords.
As an artist who rarely gives much time to looking back, I Forget Where We Were was a landmark moment in Ben’s career that first opened the door to an uncompromising spirit that has since stood him so well, and news of this anniversary tour should be greeted with the same dizzying levels of euphoria amongst his fanbase as those five minutes of euphoria that washed across the Royal Albert Hall last June.
To coincide with the tour’s announcement, a new 10th anniversary crystal clear, double-vinyl edition of the record will be made available, featuring alternative artwork to its original release.