{"id":34277,"date":"2013-02-12T11:55:48","date_gmt":"2013-02-12T17:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=34277"},"modified":"2013-02-12T12:54:05","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T18:54:05","slug":"sons-of-men-who-stand-like-gods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=34277","title":{"rendered":"Sons Of Men Who Stand Like Gods"},"content":{"rendered":"

The good news? \u00a0Big Country is re-uniting<\/a>…<\/p>\n

…sort of:<\/p>\n

The reconfigured\u00a0Big Country<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 with\u00a0The Alarm\u2019s Mike Peters<\/a>\u00a0filling in for the late\u00a0Stuart Adamson<\/a>\u00a0and the new addition of original\u00a0Simple Minds<\/a>\u00a0bassist\u00a0Derek Forbes<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 will release its first new studio album in 14 years this spring and embark on a world tour that will hit the U.K., Europe and North America.<\/p>\n

The band \u2014 also featuring guitarist\u00a0Bruce Watson<\/a>\u00a0and drummer\u00a0Mark Brzezicki<\/a>, plus Watson\u2019s son Jamie on guitar as well \u2014 has announced that the 12-track\u00a0The Journey<\/em>\u00a0is recorded, mixed and mastered and due to be released sometime this spring. No further details about the album, the band\u2019s first since 1999\u2032s\u00a0Driving to Damascus<\/em><\/a>, have been revealed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bad news? \u00a0Tony Butler isn’t part of the project<\/a>. \u00a0Big Country’s marquee memorable element was the\u00a0ingenious\u00a0guitar interplay between Adamson and Watson – but more subtly, the subdued vocal harmony between Adamson and Butler set the Scottish band apart from many lesser guitar-driven post-punk bands of the era.<\/p>\n

The “Maybe Good, Maybe Bad, and I’ll Decide When I Hear It” news? \u00a0The bombastic, hyperbolic, prancing, posturing, preening Mike Peters fit in wonderfully with The Alarm, which was a gloriously bombastic, hyperbolic, prancing, posturing, preening\u00a0band. \u00a0Big Country, behind all the bagpipe-y guitars and celtic imagery, was a very measured, controlled, “Type A” band. \u00a0Having Peters singing in Big Country’s old stuff is like having Steven Tyler sit in with Simon and Garfunkel.<\/p>\n

But then it’s a new band, with only Watson and Brzezicki back from the original lineup. \u00a0So here’s to clean slates. \u00a0And – maybe – they’re coming to the US:<\/p>\n

Big Country is due to open its previously announced 14-date tour of the U.K. and Ireland on April 12, and will follow that with a\u00a0just-announced European tour<\/a>\u00a0that opens May 14 in France\u00a0(see full dates below).<\/em>\u00a0The band says U.S. and Canadian dates are \u201cto be announced shortly,\u201d and that further European dates are planned for later in 2013.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Will I go if they come to the Twin Cities, Madison or Chicago?<\/p>\n

Hell yeah. \u00a0It’ll either be a great night, or an epic train wreck. \u00a0I’m up for either, but I’ll hope for “great night”; dreams, as they say, stay with you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The good news? \u00a0Big Country is re-uniting… …sort of: The reconfigured\u00a0Big Country\u00a0\u2014 with\u00a0The Alarm\u2019s Mike Peters\u00a0filling in for the late\u00a0Stuart Adamson\u00a0and the new addition of original\u00a0Simple Minds\u00a0bassist\u00a0Derek Forbes\u00a0\u2014 will release its first new studio album in 14 years this spring and embark on a world tour that will hit the U.K., Europe and North America. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34277"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34285,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34277\/revisions\/34285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}