ABC will return to the road with a new orchestral tour celebrating their seminal debut album, ‘The Lexicon Of Love’.
Martin Fry and co. have joined forces with Southbank Sinfonia and long-time collaborator Anne Dudley for the run of February 2024 shows, which will feature the album played in full alongside hits from their catalogue.
Topping the charts upon its release in 1982, the LP features the Top 20 hit singles Tears Are Not Enough, Poison Arrow, The Look Of Love and All Of My Heart.
Opening at the Brighton Dome on February 5, the tour will take in Nottingham, Sheffield, Glasgow, Gateshead, Birmingham, Bath, Liverpool and Manchester before concluding at The London Palladium on February 17.
Tickets go on sale 10am BST on July 14.
The full list of tour dates is below.
FEBRUARY
5 – Brighton Dome, Brighton
6 – Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham
8 – City Hall, Sheffield
9 – Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow
10 – Sage, Gateshead
12 – Symphony Hall, Birmingham
13 – Forum, 13
15 – Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
16 – Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
17 – The Palladium, London
It’s not the first time Martin has revisited the album; the group returned to the UK Top 5 back in 2016 with ‘The Lexicon of Love II’ – an album he never saw himself making.
“I mean, 1983 would have been the right time but it did very well,” the singer told RETROPOP earlier this year. “For years I’d been avoiding the idea but after doing an orchestral show at the Royal Albert Hall I looked out into the audience and I could see and feel how much the songs from the original album meant to them.
“They’d been through a time capsule like I had of, you know, kids growing up, failed marriages, businesses falling apart, shit happening to them, and yet there they were singing along. It was like, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what was happening to them now as elder statesmen?’ and that’s where the germ of the idea for ‘The Lexicon of Love II’ came from.”
It was originally called ‘The Lexicon of a Lost Ideal’ until someone at the record company heard the tracks and suggested the eventual title. “If they’d suggested that at the beginning, I’d never have finished it because it would have been too intimidating,” he laughed.
“But I embraced the idea, like ‘If there can be 37 episodes of ‘Breaking Bad’, why can’t there be another episode of ‘The Lexicon of Love’?”
