First UK tour in nearly 20 years for Chicago band Spitalfield

The last time Chicago band Spitalfield toured the UK was 2007 on their farewell tour.

Mark Rose and the crew are delighted to return now, with the band well and truly back together again. They’re at Patterns in Brighton on September 30.

As Mark says, the farewell lasted a fair while: “But we have refused to go away! Between then and 2023 we hadn't really gotten together apart from anniversaries and short series of dates. We'd done the occasional pop-up but then it was really a combination of the opportunity coming up to get together again properly and just recognising how special the music scene was that we were part of. There was this nostalgia boom happening. I was still in music, working as a singer-songwriter but then we got together for the 20th anniversary of a record that we had put out in 2003, and we did close to 50 cities. At the time that was really all that we were planning to do, and that was a pretty major task but when it wrapped up we then started the conversation about continuing and keeping going and making more music.”

And that's what has happened. And part of the pleasure now is to be enjoying it all from a very different perspective.

“During the first go around there was a feeling that anything could happen and there was a sense of competitiveness and a drive towards trying to make it, and I say that with air quotes around it! During that time we learnt a lot. And when we started getting better, then we started travelling around the US and around the world and all that happened over a fairly short period of time, and when you're younger obviously it's a much greater proportion of your life at that point. When you're in your early to mid-20s you're feeling a very different sense of opportunity then in terms of what we were trying to accomplish when we were hitting the pavements and eating dirt.

“And in a way we had less responsibility. This time around our lives have changed and so have the lives of the fans. We have grown up and the fans have grown up and they've got family too. But really what we're wanting to do is recognise the crazy impact that that era had. There are plenty of artists from that time that have never stopped, that are still going but it's great to be seeing fans bringing their children to the shows now. I've got two little boys now, aged five and two, and that's another reason that touring is more difficult now but it's lovely to think that they are part of what is happening and something that just feels so special.”

It's a different enjoyment now in so many respects: “We know each other in a different way. We were spending 150 to 200 days a year next to each other in our van but now it's more spread out when we play gigs and when we tour.”

None of which leaves Mark wishing the band hadn't split when it did: “We have had the best of both worlds especially because of the circumstances in which we did call it quits. I can't really imagine not having had that break. It meant that I was able to explore other musical endeavours and solo projects and get to know other parts of the business but now it is just fantastic to be back together again and touring.”

Especially with new music.

“We started with an EP. Writing new music together did feel wild but it didn't feel unnatural. The EP was the right move in this new world of the constant digital landscape that we're in. It felt daunting the thought that some people might never listen to an album all the way through but we got some great feedback and we found that that feedback validated what we were doing and it's encouraged us to write more music together. An album is definitely the goal.”

The hope is to bring out a new album early next year perhaps – which would be their first album since October 2006.