White Lies step up for Kaiser Chiefs at Scarborough

Kaiser Chiefs return to the Open Air Theatre on 11 June, six years after they last headlined there; White Lies are billed as special guests and tickets are already on sale.

Kaiser Chiefs have confirmed White Lies as special guests for their headline show at Scarborough Open Air Theatre on Friday 11 June 2027. Tickets went on sale at 10am on 25 September 2026 via Ticketmaster UK and the venue’s own site. No further support acts or pricing details are available.

The pairing brings together two established British guitar bands for summer 2027: one rooted in Leeds indie rock, the other in the post-punk revival that grew out of Ealing. For audiences who have followed both catalogues on the radio and on the road, it is a straightforward live booking with clear lineage on each side.

Kaiser Chiefs back on the Yorkshire coast

Kaiser Chiefs began in Leeds, first as Runston Parva in 1996, then as Parva from 2000, releasing the album 22 in 2003 before taking their present name the same year. The long-standing core has been Ricky Wilson on vocals, Andrew “Whitey” White on guitar, Simon Rix on bass and Nick “Peanut” Baines on keyboards. Vijay Mistry has been the drummer since 2013, after founding member Nick Hodgson left late in 2012.

Their recorded run opened in earnest with Employment in 2005, the album that fixed them on British stages and airwaves. Off With Their Heads followed in 2008, then The Future Is Medieval in 2011, Stay Together in 2016, Duck in 2019 and Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album in 2024, with singles such as How 2 Dance, Feeling Alright and Jealousy threaded through recent years. Scarborough Open Air Theatre sits in that same live tradition: a large outdoor Yorkshire date for a band that has spent two decades taking the songs out on the road. The 2021 headline there is the immediate precedent; June 2027 is the next chapter at the same venue.

White Lies, Night Light and the road still running

White Lies formed in Ealing as a post-punk revival trio, earlier known as Fear of Flying. The core three are Harry McVeigh, Charles Cave and Jack Lawrence-Brown; live they work as a four-piece with Tommy Bowen. The debut album To Lose My Life ... arrived at the end of the 2000s, and the discography has continued through a long sequence of albums, EPs and singles up to Night Light and its expanded edition in 2025, alongside that year’s In The Middle, Keep Up, Nothing On Me and the Seventeen EP.

The Scarborough booking lands while they are still on the Night Light UK/EU Tour 2026. Recent festival appearances have included Victorious Festival and Float Along Festival. Over the past several years they have built a substantial international following, with sold-out runs across Europe and further afield, among them a 2023 show at Mexico City’s Pepsi Center and multiple sell-outs at Brixton Academy. Special-guest status at a major outdoor Yorkshire date extends that live arc into summer 2027 without interrupting their ongoing tour.

What the announcement does not yet settle is the rest of the bill or the ticket prices. For now the facts are the headliner, the special guests, the Friday in June, the coastal venue and that tickets are on sale. Two British bands with deep catalogues and long road histories share a stage; the detail that remains will follow in the usual way.