Expecting To Fly still carries The Bluetones on the road

Belfast and Dublin open the next stretch this week; the original four remain intact and the 30th-anniversary run takes in dates from Leeds to Brighton.

The Bluetones press on with the Expecting To Fly 30th anniversary tour through October and into early November, with a run of UK and Ireland dates still ahead as of 4 October. The next stops are Belfast’s Empire Music Hall on 8 October and Dublin’s Whelan’s on 9 October, before the band move back across the water for a dense stretch of club and academy rooms.

Leeds hosts two nights at the Brudenell Social Club on 14 and 15 October. Carlisle’s Old Fire Station follows on 16 October, then Glasgow’s Queen Margaret Union on 17 October and Edinburgh’s Liquid Room on 18 October. Later in the month the itinerary takes in Wolverhampton’s KK’s Steel Mill on 22 October, Cambridge Junction on 23 October, Oxford’s O2 Academy on 24 October and Newport Corn Exchange on 25 October. The closing cluster lands at Barnsley’s Birdwell Venue on 29 October, Manchester’s O2 Ritz on 30 October, London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 31 October and Brighton’s Concorde 2 on 1 November.

The tour marks three decades since Expecting To Fly, the Hounslow band’s 1996 debut, which reached number one in the UK charts. That record fixed The Bluetones in the Britpop moment as a proper singles-and-albums group rather than a footnote, and the anniversary framing treats the album as living repertoire rather than a museum piece. Playing it in full, or drawing heavily from it night after night, is the point of the outing: the songs that first put them in the rooms are the ones filling them again.

All four original members remain in the band. That continuity matters on a tour built around a first album. Line-up churn can turn an anniversary run into a tribute to itself; keeping the same four players under the same name makes the claim simple. The group are still The Bluetones who made Expecting To Fly, not a later configuration trading on the title. For an audience that grew up with that record, and for younger listeners coming to it cold, the stage picture matches the sleeve credits.

The remaining dates favour mid-size venues rather than arenas: social clubs, unions, academies, a steel mill, an empire and a Concorde 2. That scale suits a band whose pull has always been rooted in the catalogue and the live set rather than spectacle. Belfast and Dublin open the Irish leg at the Empire Music Hall and Whelan’s; the twin Leeds nights at the Brudenell underline demand in a room that rewards a tight set. Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Halloween and Brighton the night after close the listed run with two of the larger capacities still on the sheet.

Tickets remain on sale through venue and official channels. Some dates have already sold or are selling strongly, which is consistent with an anniversary tour that has been on the road long enough for word of the shows to travel. Nothing further has been announced beyond the 1 November Brighton date in the material to hand; whether more nights are added later is not yet clear.

For a Britpop band from Hounslow whose first album went to number one and whose original four are still together, the autumn dates are less a nostalgia package than a working continuation. Expecting To Fly is thirty years old. The gigs in October and on the first of November are how that fact is being marked: on stage, in the rooms that still want it, with the same line-up that cut the record. Belfast is next. Brighton is the last confirmed stop on the present list. Between them sits a clear fortnight and a half of UK and Ireland work built around the album that started it.

Tour dates

OCTOBER 2026

8 – Belfast, Empire Music Hall
9 – Dublin, Whelans
14 – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
15 – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
22 – Wolverhampton, KK's Steel Mill
24 – Oxford, O2 Academy
30 – Manchester, O2 Ritz
31 – London, O2 Shepherds Bush Empire

JANUARY 2027

15 – Ashford, Ashford Revelation