UB40, featuring Ali Campbell & Astro, is the first concert of the Scarborough Open Air Theatre summer season to be rearranged after the Government’s roadmap roll-out.
The Birmingham reggae-pop stalwarts will play on August 28, switched from June 19, with tickets remaining valid.
Promoters Cuffe & Taylor say: “We now have a roadmap for live shows to return and we cannot wait to welcome audiences back to Scarborough OAT this summer. However, due to new Government guidelines, a number of shows scheduled to take place before June 21 will need to be rescheduled.
“Rest assured we are working with artists to find alternative dates for these shows, so please bear with us and we will announce further details very soon. Take care and stay safe x.”
Should pandemic lockdown-easement measures be lifted fully on June 21, the other concerts now in need of a new date are Crowded House on June 8; Lionel Richie, June 12; The Beach Boys, June 13 and RuPaul’s Drag Race: Werq The World, June 20.
In the Scarborough OAT diary for this summer too are Bryan Adams on July 1; Snow Patrol, July 3; Duran Duran, July 7; Keane, July 9; Olly Murs, July 10; Kaiser Chiefs, July 11; Lewis Capaldi, July 25; Westlife, August 17, and Nile Rodgers & Chic August 20.
UB40 founding members Campbell and Astro, re-united seven years ago and will play with a seven-piece band on their second visit to the Yorkshire coast, following their 2017 debut.
They have been active during the pandemic-enforced hiatus, writing songs for their forthcoming album and reassembling their touring band remotely to record a lockdown single, a poignant cover of the late Bill Withers’ Lean On Me, in aid of NHS Charities Together.
Campbell and Astro will return to the road in 2021 with bassist Colin McNeish, guitarist Winston Delandro, keyboardist Michael Martin, drummer Paul Slowly, backing singer Matt Hoy and a brass section of trumpeter Colin Graham and saxophonist Winston Rose.
A handful of new songs will complement multiple UB40 classics, notably King, a hymn to the legacy of American Civil Rights leader Dr Martin Luther King and One In Ten, a paean to the rising tide of unemployment in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, both as resonant today as they were when first sung in 1980 and 1981.
Campbell says: “We wrote King 40 years ago, but it’s still representative of what’s happening in America. It’s depressing that nothing has changed. It’s the same with One In Ten in the UK. With the impact the Coronavirus could have on jobs, we could soon be looking at unemployment figures on a par with the early Eighties.”
Campbell adds: “Those songs will feature in a show we’ve been honing for the past 12 years. We’ll always play the classics, like Red Red Wine and (I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You, but we like to change the beginning and end of the show.
“We’ll play Lean On Me and maybe add three or four new songs. The band members are all fantastic musicians and we’ve climbed back up to the biggest venues.”
Tickets for the Scarborough OAT season are on sale at scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.