Acoustic star Jack Savoretti has announced a post-lockdown return to Newcastle, hot on the heels of another new album.
The singer-songwriter will be back on tour next spring with a show scheduled on March 31 for the 02 City Hall where he earned a top review in 2019, the year which saw him on a roll until the Covid crisis hit.
A 2020 date at Newcastle Racecourse had been just one of the concerts he had planned for the washout year - but Geordie fans will be delighted to hear they have not been forgotten as the English-Italian favourite announces a new tour and a new album.
Ahead of the tour, Europiana, described as having its own genre, will make its debut on June 25 and it includes funky first single - the disco-fuelled Who’s Hurting Who - featuring American legend Nile Rodgers.
It follows Savoretti's sixth album Singing to Strangers - which is apparently how his daughter summed up his job - which went to number one.
The star, who has also played The Cluny several times, assured local audiences on his last tour visit: "I’m not singing to strangers in Newcastle."
He is set to make even more new friends at the City Hall on his return on March when he will showcase his new work created between lockdowns in his Oxfordshire home.
“For weeks we literally lived Europiana," he said.
"The band would arrive and I’d make a big lunch, eaten outside with loads of rosé - then we’d go inside to write in what is usually my living room but it became a studio.
"The sun and fun seeped into the songs."
It proved a very different experience to recording his 2019 album at Ennio Morricone’s studio in Rome when, besides his successful UK tour and selling out the likes of Wembley Stadium, the year also saw Savoretti collaborate with Kylie and Mika.
He says of his latest big name collaboration: "Nile brings groove, glamour and chic that is everything that Europiana is.
"Europiana wouldn’t exist without Nile Rodgers!”
And he added: “Europiana isn’t a sound. It’s references and inspirations and the emotions they evoke.
"It’s the music of my childhood summers, remade for today.
"Singing to Strangers was my first album that wasn’t all about me, which I loved.
"Europiana pushes that further. There are more characters and bigger concepts. I’m looking out at the world, not inwards.”
The voices of Savoretti’s wife and children also can be heard on some of its tracks.
Tickets for his 12-date 2022 tour - which will begin in Plymouth and end in London - go on sale on Friday, May 14 at 9am. Keep an eye out here.
