The mighty Simple Minds have embarked on their largest North American tour in decades, and they arrive at Merriweather Post Pavilion on Tuesday, June 10! And Simple Minds don’t come alone; they bring with them fellow UK new wave bands Modern English and Soft Cell.
“Been a while but absence makes the heart grow fonder,” said Jim Kerr upon announcing the tour. “Simple Minds are ecstatic at the prospect of touring so extensively in the US and Canada this coming Spring.”
The eagerly awaited tour coincides with the 40th anniversary of Simple Minds’ momentous 1985, a milestone year in their legendary career which saw them topping the world’s charts with their Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 smash, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” and RIAA Gold-certified seventh studio album Once Upon A Time, not to mention their unforgettable set in front of 135,000 fans — and a TV audience of millions — on the American leg of 1985’s Live Aid.
Recently, Simple Minds refreshed a special new 9-track edition of Once Upon A Time featuring the addition of “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” and updated Ruby Anniversary artwork with a digital premiere. (Physical versions and other anniversary reissues will follow later in the year.)
Watch Simple Minds perform “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” live at Live Aid on YouTube:
What’s more, 2025 looks to be yet another banner year for Simple Minds, including the recent arrival of the new single, “Your Name In Lights,” released to celebrate the BBC premiere of the acclaimed documentary, Simple Minds: Everything Is Possible.
On Thursday June 12, join Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill at the IFC Center in New York City for a special Q&A, followed by a screening of Everything Is Possible, the acclaimed feature-length documentary chronicling the story of Simple Minds. Everything Is Possible will be released in theaters and on demand across North America starting June 13.
Produced and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Joss Crowley, (Kate Bush, Freddie Mercury, Peter Gabriel), Simple Minds: Everything Is Possible is the first-ever feature-length documentary to chronicle the most iconic and influential Scottish band in history. Highlights include never-before-seen footage and feature interviews with band members, fellow musicians Bob Geldof, Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream), Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode), Jerry Dammers (The Specials), Sharleen Spiteri (Texas), James Dean Bradfield (Manic Street Preachers), writer Irvine Welsh, actress Molly Ringwald, and album producers John Leckie, Pete Walsh, Steve Hillage, Trevor Horn, and Jimmy Iovine.
Watch the official music video for “Your Name in Lights” by Simple Minds on YouTube:
Legendary British new wave/post-punk band Modern English opens the show! In 2024, Modern English released 1 2 3 4, which was the band’s first album of new material in eight years and a collection that retains the intrinsic spirit of the band’s early post-punk days and a sterling sonic example of what Modern English have always done best. The album encompasses seething songs with a punk bite (“Long in The Tooth,” “Plastic”), keyboard-forward melodic rockers (“Not Fake,” “Crazy Lovers”) and simmering, darkwave-meets-post-punk gems (“Exploding,” “Out to Lunch”). With a touch of subtle themes lifted from After the Snow (1982) and Ricochet Days (1984) that include the environment, aging, failed relationships, love, politics and more, 1 2 3 4 finds the legendary band delving into nostalgia but, as always, exploring new creative territory.
Modern English co-produced their sophomore effort, 1982’s After the Snow, with Hugh Jones (The Sound, Echo & The Bunnymen), pairing trademark moodiness with spiky guitars and shimmering keyboards. In addition to the UK Top 40 hit “Life in the Gladhouse,” the LP became known for “I Melt With You,” which became a Top 10 hit at USA rock radio and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart. A paragon of consistency, Modern English have become widely respected over the years as innovators, thanks to younger generations discovering their catalog and new artists citing the band as an influence. This increased popularity has translated to sold-out tours performing their early albums and a main stage appearance at the 2023 Cruel World Festival in front of more than 25,000 people. (Simple Minds followed up with a stunning 2024 Cruel World performance, by the way! It was their only US date that year.)
“It’s been a big journey for everybody, and our early days are really important to us,” Modern English frontman Robbie Grey says. “We haven’t changed that much. We’re still the same people inside. And the original members are the sound of the band; if you take some of those components away, you won’t have the Modern English sound.”
Watch Modern English perform “I Melt With You” live for KEXP on YouTube:
In 2023, Soft Cell released a limited edition of the band’s landmark album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. With its roots in post-punk electronics, French chanson, American soul, kitchen sink drama, and New York dance, over 40 years later, the album’s themes still resonate and helped change the course of British pop. It paved the way for countless synth-based music duos, fashioning something dark and distinctive with a hint of pop that helped kick-start a new decade. The phenomenal success of “Tainted Love” in America, where it spent a then-record breaking 43 straight weeks on the Billboard Hot 100) and led the way in the USA for alternative and electronic artists such as The Cure and Depeche Mode.
Initially released in November 1981, the 10-track song cycle, in the words of frontman Marc Almond, “tells a story of a bored ordinary bloke seething with his life wanting more and looking for excitement and adventure in a red neon lit Soho world of red-light cabarets, prostitutes, and sex dwarves, looking back at his youth and wondering what happened.” Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret contained three of the most significant singles of the decade; “Tainted Love” (the best-selling UK single of 1981), “Bedsitter,” and “Say Hello Wave Goodbye.” Dave Ball recalled making the album as “All very weird and extreme, from living in a council flat and suddenly you’re flying on Concorde to New York” Looking back, Ball said, “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret was the first period of Soft Cell, really. It was our pop period, and by 1982 we were done and dusted with that. The next one, was much darker.”
Watch the official music video for “Tainted Love” by Simple Minds on YouTube:
In April, BMG released Simple Minds’ new live album, Live in The City of Diamonds, ahead of the band’s biggest North American tour in four decades. The album is available now in a variety of formats, including a 2 x CD Media Book featuring 24 tracks and a 24-page book including exclusive photos and tour notes written by Jim Kerr, Double Black Vinyl with 18 tracks, housed in a gatefold sleeve with a hi hi-spec finish, and Specialist Retail Exclusive Vinyl that is Double clear/glitter vinyl housed in gatefold sleeve with hi-spec finish.
Inimitable musical pioneers for nearly half a century, Simple Minds are among the most successful UK bands of all time, having achieved more than 1B global streams on Spotify alone (with over 8.3M monthly listeners on Spotify alone) and total worldwide sales in excess of 60M, including six No. 1 albums in the UK and chart-topping releases in countless other territories including Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand.
Coalescing around childhood friends Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill, Simple Minds emerged in 1978 with an immediately distinctive sound simultaneously rooted in punk, art-rock, and the electronic avant-garde. Over the next four decades, the band has pushed their open-armed approach to fashion a broad array of stylistic varieties — spanning pop, funk, gospel, soul, dance music, and more — into their own world-straddling brand of stadium-sized rock. Their continually evolving body of work is highlighted by such landmark LPs as 1982’s New Gold Dream (81,82,83,84), 1984’s Sparkle in the Rain, 1985’s Once Upon a Time, and 1989’s Street Fighting Years, along with a stunning canon of iconic global hit singles spanning “Love Song,” “Someone Somewhere (In Summertime),” “Glittering Prize,” “Promised You a Miracle,” “Up on the Catwalk,” “Speed Your Love to Me,” “Waterfront,” “Belfast Child,” and of course the timeless teen anthem, 1985’s USA No. 1 classic, “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” the latter of course famously featured in the classic John Hughes film, The Breakfast Club.
Named as the world’s “Best Live Band” by Q Magazine in 1991, Simple Minds have long commanded the stages of sold-out arenas and stadiums around the planet. Their world-class credentials have been burnished in recent years by an array of equally remarkable accomplishments – from acclaimed new albums (including 2018’s Walk Between Worlds and 2022’s Direction of the Heart, both of which had Top 5 chart debuts in the UK), best-selling live albums, career retrospectives, and epic world tours to accolades and honors like a 2014 Q Inspiration Award (presented by avowed fan Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield) to a prestigious Ivor Novello Award for “Outstanding Song Collection” — all of which serve as timely reminders to a new generation of Simple Minds’ ongoing appeal as well a springboard for their next burst of creativity. Now as ever, Simple Minds remain a band touched by powerful magic, continually willing to experiment while remaining true to their original instincts.
Simple Minds
W/ Modern English and Soft Cell
Merriweather Post Pavilion
Tuesday, June 10
Gates @ 5:30pm
$46.65-$200
All ages
