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Photo: Melissa Gardner
Sam Fender has announced the "Proper Massive Stadium Tour", a summer 2027 run that takes him to Wembley for two nights on June 18 and 20, the biggest headline shows of his career so far. It opens at home in Newcastle and ends in Manchester, nine nights in all, with Wales, Scotland and Ireland on the way. Fans who pre-ordered his fourth album get first access to tickets, though the album itself still has no title or release date.
He did not just drop a list of dates online. First an "SF27" advert flashed up on the big screens during a Newcastle United football match at St James' Park, the stadium of his local club, and then came a short film borrowed from the beacon scene in The Lord of the Rings. Two bandmates dressed as hobbits light fires inside the empty stadium, the saxophonist, cast as Gandalf, looks on, and the drummer, playing Aragorn, races into a pub to tell Frodo the news. Frodo, of course, is Fender himself, and he finishes his pint before he goes anywhere.
There is one stop on the route that is not a stadium. In early July he crosses to Belgium to close the main stage at Rock Werchter, his first headline slot at a European festival, two days after the Dublin show. Back on the British dates he is bringing Wunderhorse as support, the loud, ragged guitar band that Jacob Slater started in Newquay, Cornwall. Their second album, Midas, reached No. 6 and gave them their first UK Top 10 album.
The song that carried him to this scale is a duet. "Rein Me In", sung with Olivia Dean, took its time, hanging around the chart for months before it finally climbed to the top and gave the pair a No. 1 single. Then it refused to leave, returning to the top again and again through the spring and summer. The official chart now lists it as the longest-running number one single in UK history, finally passing a record that Frankie Laine had held since 1953. His third album went to No. 1 and won the Mercury Prize, the duet was named song of the year at the BRITs, and the Ivors made him songwriter of the year.
When leaked prices showed a pricier front standing section at Wembley, he said he was "not happy" and promised they were "getting changed". Within a day the premium tier was gone and standing was set at £85 before fees, because "whoever buys a standing ticket gets as much chance as anyone to be at the front". Every ticket also carries £1 for the LIVE Trust, which supports grassroots music across the UK. The pre-sale opens on October 28 and the general sale follows two days later.
The tour opens at that same stadium, where his last homecoming run drew 150K fans over three nights, by Pollstar's count. Olivia Dean joined him on two of those nights to sing "Rein Me In", and the song later got a St James' Park Edition of its official video. This time he plays the ground on a Thursday and a Saturday in the first week of June, and the club has set aside an early allocation for its own supporters before the tour moves on to Cardiff.
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