Black Francis
By: Thomas Hannan
Touring this week:
Brookes University, Oxford - 07/02/2008
The Garage, Glasgow - 10/02/2008
Tour then continues:
Manchester University, Manchester - 12/02/2008
Koko, London - 13/02/2008
Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth - 14/02/2008
Tickets: £14 - £18.10 face value, available HERE.
Why is this worthy of my time and money?: Though we've been temped to do so a few times, we try with both our 'Tour of the Week' and 'Band of the Week' features not to repeat ourselves. And given that Band of the Week has been going for over seven years now, this takes some effort. 'Tour of the Week' might be a comparative baby, but still, through said medium we've already brought you news of the goodness of the spectacle that is Frank Black live, and so it was with a heavy heart that we decided we couldn't in good faith tell you how the same man, Charles Thompson II, will be playing some more shows this week. Yet Charles/Frank has made our lives much easier by reverting to his previous stage name, Black Francis, a title which, even though he remains the same fellow, is different enough from Frank Black for us to feel comfortable imploring you to get down to these shows. Reverting to this name, you see, is something of a statement of intent - here Charles returns to the moniker he adopted when he was frontman of one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time (only the freakin' Pixies!), perhaps in acknowledgement that he was better at the gutsy, brazen rock stuff than pleasant alt-country all along. Expect some new songs in that richer of veins, and maybe a monkey or eyeball thrown in for old time's sake.