Gene reform for gig

Tickets go on sale on Friday twenty eighth March

Gene are reuniting to play their first gig in over 20 years on the Eventim Apollo London on 4 October 2025.

With the band’s iconic and much-loved debut album, Olympian, celebrating its thirtieth birthday this yr, Martin Rossiter (vocals), Matt James (drums), Steve Mason (guitars) and Kevin Miles (bass) determined the time was proper to share the stage collectively once more, the primary time they’ve performed so since Gene performed a farewell present on the London Astoria in December 2004. 

Tickets for the Hammersmith present will go on sale at 9.00am on Friday 28^th March. Please go to www.geneofficial.com for full particulars.

“God forbid I take advantage of the F phrase, however immediately felt like this may very well be enjoyable. It will likely be a joyous event,” declares Martin Rossiter. “I don’t suppose musically we had been ever prosaic. Even for a music that was three chords and the reality, we at all times weaved an additional melodic curiosity into every little thing we did. So to play these songs once more, alongside the individuals who created them, goes to be very particular.”

After being approached late final yr about the potential for enjoying once more as Gene by Creation Information founder Alan McGee and Toura Toura’s Kevin Fitzgerald, who co-manage the likes of Sleeper, Huey Morgan and Alabama 3, the 4 band members solely met for the primary time in December. The pace at which issues have progressed since is testomony to the group’s enduring ardour and instant reconnection.

“All 4 of us met up, in all probability for the primary time since our final gig, and it instantly felt identical to it had at all times been,” explains Matt James. “We had been at all times very self-depreciating as a gaggle and the banter rapidly kicked again in. After a couple of quips barked throughout the pub desk we relaxed and all of us laughed so much. Straightaway it felt like we had been a band once more. We’ve simply to verify we will do it musically now too.”

The band insisted on gathering collectively in a rehearsal room for the primary time simply days earlier than signing off on this gig announcement, demonstrating their dedication to delivering once more on the formidable dwell fame Gene loved all through their profession.

“We’re placing all our vitality into making this musically spectacular,” explains Rossiter. “Sure, we’re going to be incomes some moderately respectable cash, nevertheless it isn’t yachts within the Adriatic cash and the primary factor that satisfied me to do that once more was that, inside 5 minutes, the conversations between the 4 of us had reached the purpose of, ‘how can we make this good?’ In order that drive remains to be there, the dynamic was nonetheless there and so I began daydreaming about what it could be prefer to waggle my – barely bigger – ass on the stage yet another time.”

Gene shaped in 1993 and made their debut with the one For The Lifeless the next yr on the indie label Costermonger, which was based particularly for the discharge by the journalists and authors Keith Cameron and Roy Wilkinson. Restricted to 1994 copies, the seven-inch offered out in two days.

The band’s debut album, Olympian, adopted on 20 March 1995 and rapidly grew to become one of many period’s greatest and most appreciated information – together with singles Sleep Effectively Tonight, Haunted By You and the stately title observe – because it reached the UK High 10.

Olympian’s enduring and superior standing was recognised when NME took the uncommon step of revising its opinion of the file, overriding its preliminary on launch evaluate to reward the file in 2011 as they declared the album possessed “a powerful and commanding soul.” Additional affirmation of this beloved standing was demonstrated by the outpouring Gene acquired when Martin Rossiter and Matt James revisited the album for one Tim Burgess’s Twitter Listening Events throughout the 2020 lockdown. Olympian was then included in Burgess’ hardback ebook which celebrated the perfect of these international communal listening periods.

Demonstrating the depth of Gene’s inventive imaginative and prescient, Olympian was adopted in 1996 by rarities and b-side assortment To The See The Lights, which grew to become a right away fan favorite, earlier than their second full album, Drawn To The Deep Finish, additionally went straight into the High 10 in 1997, boasting the hits Preventing Match, We Might Be Kings, The place Are They Now? and Converse To Me Somebody.

With 1999’s extra muscular Revelations ably capturing the fin de siècle uncertainty and hope within the air on the time, Gene initially ended on the inventive excessive of 2002 album Libertine which Q Journal praised for its “grace and guile” because the album gained widespread vital acclaim.

Reflecting the enduring dwell fame the band loved all through their profession – each for his or her exhibits and as pageant favourites – Gene’s then remaining gig happened on the London Astoria on 16 December 2004 and noticed the band exit on the peak of their powers.

Of their absence Gene’s affect has nonetheless been keenly felt, not solely incomes continued performs on radio stations together with BBC 6 Music and Absolute whereas having fun with rising streaming numbers however following public demand and eye-watering second-hand costs for the originals, the group’s total again catalogue was re-pressed on vinyl in 2020 alongside the discharge of latest better of assortment Yours For The Taking. Taking the chance to appraise Gene’s total catalogue, Mojo concluded, “the urbane, eloquent outsiders… oozed class.”    

Whereas Olympian’s thirtieth birthday yr provides an ideal sense of event for the band and followers alike, the four-piece is eager to make sure the London present might be a celebration of every little thing Gene stood for.

“Olympian’s anniversary is an effective motive for doing it, however we’re trying ahead to enjoying songs from all of our profession,” says James. “It will be so much enjoyable enjoying as Gene once more.”