Courteeners announce special Manchester playback of ‘St Jude’ with Liam Fray Q&A

9 April, 2024

Liam Fray, lead singer and guitarist of The Courteeners Band performs live on stage at Glastonbury Festival of the Performing Arts.

Courteeners have announced details of a one-off playback of ‘St Jude’, as well as a Q&A session with frontman Liam Fray. Find ticket details below.

The indie giants announced the news on X/Twitter earlier today (April 9), confirming that they will be holding an exclusive event in Manchester later this month, which will see them play the ‘St. Jude 15th Anniversary Edition’ album in full.

Originally released in 2008, ‘St. Jude’ peaked at Number Four on the Official Albums Chart at the time and contained three Top 40 singles including indie dancefloor staple ‘Not Nineteen Forever’.

To celebrate the 15-year milestone, the band last year announced the reissue of ‘St. Jude’ along with a massive Heaton Park gig.

According to the update, the album will be played in Apple Music’s Dolby Atmos Spatial audio, and a special Q&A session will be held on the night too, where fans can put their questions forward to the frontman Liam Fray.

It is set to take place on April 16, and just 25 pairs of tickets are available for the event. Fans can visit here to enter, although they have to submit their entry before 5pm BST tomorrow (April 10) to be in with a chance of winning tickets.

Check out the full post below.

The announcement that Courteeners will be playing back their iconic ‘St Jude’ debut album comes after Liam Fray spoke to NME at the start of the year, and shared how he felt about the band heading for Number One with the anniversary reissue.

“It’s just mad, fingers crossed but it’s hard to know how to feel. I love ‘St. Jude’, and I’m never going to say that anything else we’ve done is better than that because that’s the one that set the tone – but I feel like our last album ‘More. Again. Forever.’ was a real step up for us,” he explained.

“People say that numbers don’t matter. Are you kidding me? This industry is literally built on a Top 10 every fucking week – so don’t say that no one cares! If it gets there, it’ll be really nice. It’s been a long time coming and it’s a big pat on the back for the people that have worked with us and all the fans that have been there for us at any point. It shows that there’s still a place for it and that people are into it.”

Fray added: “We feel pretty blessed. I thought I’d feel all rockstar-y and fur coat-y, but it just feels pretty nice to be honest.”

The comments also follow the interview Fray had with NME at last year’s instalment of Glastonbury, where he revealed details of new material to fans.

“We’ve have the time to be afforded the chance to do anything we fucking want. I mean that in the freest sense. Nobody has ever given us any constraints; that’s just me being conservative about what people really want,” he explained.

“I want to do two albums. One is fun and the other is piano, drum machines, a bit moodier. Don’t expect any hits off that one, but I know what will happen – they’ll be the hits and no one will give a fuck about the ones that I think are good. The ones that are sleepers will be loved. But also, who cares? I love that idea from tonight of feeling so insignificant as part of Glastonbury. I’m going to try and transfer that to the rest of my life.”

As well as the Manchester event, the band have various festival appearances lined up for this summer including gigs at Lytham, Boardmasters, Victorious and TRNSMT. Visit here for any remaining tickets.

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