Breakout British band Sports Team confirms select dates in New York + Los Angeles

August 23, 2022—Breakthrough British band Sports Team is confirmed for a select run of upcoming U.S. shows this fall. The run of dates include a sold out performance at New York’s Mercury Lounge as well as further shows at Los Angeles’ The Echo, San Francisco’s Bottom Of The Hill and Santa Ana’s Observatory. The band’s original North American tour has been postponed until 2023, current tour routng is below.

 

The upcoming dates are in celebration of the band’s highly anticipated new album, Gulp!, which is set for release September 23 via Island UK/Bright Antenna. The group recently debuted four singles from Gulp!: “R Entertainment” (listen/share HERE), “Cool It Kid” (listen/share HERE), “The Game” (listen/share HERE) and “The Drop” (listen/share HERE). Sports Team also recently debuted a live performance video of “The Drop,” which can be viewed HERE.

 

The new music has already begun to receive praise in the U.K. with Rolling Stone giving Gulp! a four-star review, proclaiming, “Sports Team have set their sights on becoming the biggest band on the planet, and this ambition is on full show across this album of intoxicating, large-scale melodies… Sports Team’s remarkable rise won’t stop here,” while DIY adds, “Sports Team are a band to be believed, in the flesh in the sweatiest venues or most golden fields, sun beaming down… a heft of new ammo for pint-flinging, mosh pitting chaos on the dancefloor.”

 

Sports Team is Alex Rice (lead vocals), Rob Knaggs (rhythm guitar, vocals), Henry Young (lead guitar), Oli Dewdney (bass), Al Greenwood (drums) and Ben Mack (keyboard, percussion). Formed in 2016, the band released two EPs, Winter Nets and Keep Walking!, prior to their 2020 Mercury Prize-nominated debut album Deep Down Happy which reached #2 on the U.K.’s Official Charts, achieving the biggest vinyl sales for a debut British artist that year. Rolling Stone hails, “The crisp, jagged tunes on their debut LP, Deep Down Happy, recall Franz Ferdinand or the early Arctic Monkeys; their weird-angled guitars can evoke Pavement or Silkworm; their clever critiques of British life recall Pulp and the Kinks; and singer Alex Rice’s ranting style has shades of Art Brut’s Eddie Argos and Mark E. Smith of the Fall. It’s all conjured with a buoyant sense of good-natured humor, so they sound like they’re having fun even when they’re pissed off. The album bounces by with the logic of a free-for-all pub debate.”

 

Sports Team’s vivid vignettes of modern Britain and inspections of the follies, foibles and frustrations of youth have earned them an impassioned fanbase, a real community who come together at the band’s electrifying and infectious live shows.

August 27— Portsmouth, UK—Victorious Festival 2022

September 8-9— Málaga, Spain—Sacaba Beach

September 10—Madrid, Spain—Mad Cool Sunset 2022

October 6—Santa Ana, CA—Observatory

October 7—Los Angeles, CA—The Echo

October 8—San Francisco, CA—Bottom Of The Hill

October 11—Leeds, UK—O2 Academy

October 12—Glasgow, UK—Barrowlands Ballroom

October 13—Birmingham, UK—O2 Academy

October 14—Manchester, UK—Manchester Academy

October 16—Nottingham, UK—Rock City

October 17—Southampton, UK—O2 Guildhall

October 19—Bristol, UK—O2 Academy

October 20—Norwich, UK—UEA

October 21—London, UK—The Roundhouse

October 24—Belfast, Ireland—Limelight 2

October 25—Dublin, Ireland—The Academy

November 4— Zurich, Switzerland—Exil

November 6—Vienna, Austria— Chelsea

November 9— Berlin, Germany— Privatclub

November 13— Stockholm, Sweden—Debaser Hornstulls Strand

November 14— Oslo, Norway—Parkteatret Scene

November 16—Hamburg, Germany— Molotow

November 17— Köln, Germany— Helios 37

November 21—Parisa, France— La Boule Noire

BOLD — sold out