Speaking to the Quietus for a feature which will run on Monday, he said the Left Field in Motion tour takes its name from the stage at Glastonbury which he runs. Having personally selected the lineup, which includes The King Blues, Sound of Rum and MOBO winner Akala, Bragg says he hopes the tour will help to engage a new generation in political activism while showcasing emerging talent.
Ticket prices have been pegged lower than usual in an acknowledgement of the bleak financial climate.
Bragg told The Quietus:
“I’ve been working with the Left Field at Glastonbury for the last ten years and the last two years I’ve been more or less running it. They say ‘curating’ it but that doesn’t really cover what you have to do! My feeling about what I should be doing there is that we have debates during the daytime, we have a bit of comedy as well, but with regards to bands my focus is to try to find young political bands and give them a platform, and use that as a way of communicating to the audience that there is a way of putting ideas out through music that people don’t first think of anymore.”
“The question is, is it worth trying to put those ideas out there on the Left Field tour? I think it is. I’ve chosen young bands and bands that are a little bit more in urban music than I normally work with. King Blues I’ve had at Left Field, and they’ve kind of brought together elements of hip-hop and elements of The Clash. Sound of Rum is kind of a mixture of hip-hop and William Blake channeled through a twenty-something white female called Kate Tempest, who is an incredible poet, and Akala, who is a rapper.”
On the lack of young guitar bands writing political music, he added:
“It’s all new stuff for me, but there’s no point in me waiting for white boys with guitars to come along. They seem to be off with The Vaccines somewhere, not where I am. Those that do seem to want to write about it – look at Ed Sheeran’s video for ‘The A Team’ – don’t seem to be making the connections, and I’m not gonna come round with a stick and tell ‘em all off.”
The Left Field in Motion tour will call at:
NOVEMBER
BILLY BRAGG & SOUND OF RUM
13th – Edinburgh Queens Hall
BILLY BRAGG, THE KING BLUES & SOUND OF RUM
15th – Sheffield Leadmill
16th – Teesside University
17th – Leeds University
19th – Cambridge Junction
20th – Keele University
21st – Oxford 02 Academy
BILLY BRAGG, AKALA & SOUND OF RUM
22nd – London HMV Forum
24th – Leicester 02 Academy
25th – Liverpool The Picket
26th – Liverpool The Picket
28th – Bristol University
More details at Billy Bragg’s official site here
