i/o The Tour begins in Kraków

 

i/o Tour rehearsals, by York Tillyer.

Tonight, Thursday 18 May sees the first date of the UK and European leg of i/o The Tour, at the TAURON Arena in Kraków, Poland.

There’s always a trade-off. People generally want to hear what they know and the artist generally wants to play the new stuff. So, I think there’s a sort of barter thing where you have to suffer enough new numbers to get to hear the old ones. It’s always been a bit like that with me, but I think this is a strong batch of songs. They’re not all up-tempo, but I feel they’re certainly being played with a lot of heart.

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In this video, Peter introduces the band that will join him on-stage for the tour.

We have two string players, the amazing cello player Ayanna Witter-Johnson, who’s also playing the keyboard and singing beautifully. Marina Moore on violin and viola, a great player and she’s also singing with us. Richard Evans is back. He’s been working with me for many years on and off for different situations, more in the studio probably than on the road, though he was in the band for the Growing Up tour.

We have Josh Shpak, who’s a brilliant trumpeter. He’s also ended up on the i/o record. Oli Jacobs, who was engineering, was visiting an old flatmate and heard him rehearsing next door and said, “this guy’s amazing.” And sure enough, we sent him some stuff and he did some beautiful playing. And it’s great to have him out here with us as well.

When I was working with Brian Eno, who has done some wonderful work on the i/o record, I was trying to play a funky keyboard part and he said, “Peter, the man you want is Don E.” And it was on the track Road to Joy, which hasn’t yet come out. But he got Don in and he was fantastic. Lovely to work with. Then we found out that he does all sorts of other things too as he grew up in a sort of gospel household where you just had to play all the instruments, sing, percussion, all sorts! So, I thought that would be a nice inclusion on the keyboards as well.

Then Manu Katché, we have back on drums, he’s just brilliant. David Rhodes and Tony Levin have been with me such a long time and have been such a regular part of my band. So that’s what makes it fun, extraordinary musicians with a really wide range of experience and talents.