Photo: The Vamps
“It’ll be exciting!”: The Vamps chat upcoming UK anniversary tour
The Vamps sat down with me to chat about their UK headline tour taking place this September. The tour is due to be a celebration of their debut album, ‘Meet The Vamps’, that turns ten this year.
The wait is over… The Vamps are going back on tour this September! Following their hugely successful UK and Europe tour in 2022/23 and an incredible sold-out show at the Royal Albert Hall last summer, The Vamps are once again taking to the road. This time they will be touring their debut album, as well as some fan favourites.
‘Meet The Vamps’ came out in 2014 so this tour is due to be a huge celebration of that specific album. With Brad, Connor, James and Tristan promising to play the album in its entirety for the very first time.
‘Meet The Vamps Anniversary Tour’ will be taking the band all around the UK. Kicking off in York and finishing in Manchester, playing several UK cities in between.
I caught up with Brad, Connor, James and Tristan earlier this week to learn even more about their upcoming tour.
Hi boys! You’ve just announced a tour this week to celebrate your debut album (‘Meet The Vamps’) turning 10 years old which is so exciting! How do you feel knowing your debut album is turning 10 years old?
Brad [B] – It’s weird because it was such a moment in time for us. It feels like ten years but then at the same time not.
You first toured ‘Meet The Vamps’ in 2014 so what’s going to be different when you tour the album this year?
Connor [C] – We’re going to be doing all the songs off the album.
All of them? Even from the deluxe part of the album?
All – Yeah!
Tristan [T] – We’ve never done that before.
B – ‘On The Floor’, ‘Dangerous’, ‘Fall’. Got to do ‘Fall’.
T – ‘She Was The One’! Which was actually where it all started. It was the one we used to busk with.
So do you think this tour will be completely different to the first time you toured ‘Meet The Vamps’?
B – Yeah, a lot of songs from the album we have never played in a live capacity whatsoever. So it’ll be the first time ever for some of them.
Will you be scared or excited playing those ones live for the first time?
B – It’ll be exciting! It’s kind of nice to challenge yourself, as a band. Also because the album was made when we were ten years younger, you develop as a musician and a performer. I think it’ll be interesting to see how we interpret it now.
Is there any song in particular that you’re looking forward to performing this year on the tour?
C – ‘Smile’!
James [J] – ‘Another World’!
B – I’m looking forward to playing ‘Golden’. We’ll have to speed it up because we’ve played ‘Golden’ a few times and we realised we were jumping a lot. It was slightly too slow for us to be jumping so we’ll have to speed it up this time.
You’re kicking off the tour in York and I don’t think you’ve ever played in York before, so that’s maybe a first too.
J – We’ve been to York before but never performed there.
C – I’ve been before and went to the Harry Potter street!
The tour is going all around the UK throughout September, ending in Manchester. Which city or venue are you looking forward to performing in the most?
J – We are playing my favourite venue in the world, Manchester Apollo.
B – I can’t wait for that. It’s also one of my favourites.
T – I’m looking forward to London!
J – Genuinely though, like York, it’s quite nice to go to new places.
Are there any current plans to take the tour outside of the UK?
B – At the moment, no. But a lot of it was we wanted to see the reaction to the announcement first. It’s definitely not out of the question. We did a world tour a few years ago and we got to go back to places we hadn’t been in a while. We definitely want to.
T – We know that when we do another original album, it is going to be special for us. So a world tour would probably be a really exciting thing to do if the time comes for that.
Is there anywhere you really like going to when you go on a world tour?
T – South East Asia is my favourite.
J – Japan. For the food.
B – South America is really cool. Again, the food is great.
T – The bars in South East Asia are cool too. They have these whiskey bars that you can only fit a few people in at a time. The culture is amazing.
Last year you played at the Royal Albert Hall and now hold the record for the loudest crowd ever in 150 years, which is insane!
J – Wow!
B – Not bad, is it?
How was it to play there and to now hold that record? It must feel immense!
B – Yeah, it was amazing! There’s been so many venues we’ve played over the years that we’ve wanted to tick off but we’d never headlined a show there. We’ve always wanted to play it, it felt like a really special moment to be able to play it. When you walk into venues like that you feel the weight of the responsibility and the history. So much has happened in that room so to be able to even just play and hold our own show is mad.
T – What’s awesome as well is that every person that has ever played there have all been in the tiny dressing room. There is also only one entrance to the stage that so many artists have also walked through so that’s pretty cool.
C – I think having the orchestra with us made everything feel epic! It was such a highlight for us.
T – It was the first 360 show we’d done as well. We weren’t going to sell the tickets behind us but I think it was better to fill it because that was so cool hearing people sing from all around. It was a weird feeling.
C – I turn to Tris a lot to play so when I could see there was a crowd there too, I was taken back. It was sick!
It was fantastic to catch up with The Vamps and find out more about the tour and also to find out how their gig at the Royal Albert Hall went. I’m super excited for the tour, anyone else?
The ‘Meet The Vamps Anniversary Tour’ announcement is not the only thing that The Vamps are treating fans to this week. They have also released ‘Somebody To You ReVamped’ today which is one of their first singles reimagined to how it’d sound if it was released with their sound now. The band went away to a countryside studio last year to rework on the single ten years after its original release. You can listen to it now.
Keep your eyes peeled for a part two of this interview as there is more coming from The Vamps in the near future!
Tickets to ‘Meet The Vamps Anniversary Tour’ are on sale from today.