MUSIC: Second Simple Minds date at the Olympia

SIMPLE Minds have added a second Olympia Theatre date after their June 7 gig sold out. 

The Scottish rockers are bringing their ‘Acoustic live 2017’ set on tour to highlight the release of a new album featuring a career-spanning collection of songs.

They have now added a second Olympia Theatre date on June 8 due to demand.

This follows several years in which the band has gone from strength-to-strength, while becoming more relevant than ever. Their 2014 album ‘Big Music’ received across the board praise, with MOJO magazine declaring it “their best album in 30 years”.

Simple Minds Acoustic continues the band’s artistic quest with a one-off album release of stripped down and re-imagined songs spanning their eclectic and illustrious career.  

On Simple Minds Acoustic, the band have found a way of doing the acoustic thing without losing their essence, and a dozen Simple Minds songs loved by millions now sound more organic and even more likely to leave a lasting imprint. The synths are no more but the Celtic soul remains.

The fact that the album sessions entailed a sentimental return to their Glasgow roots for Jim and guitarist Charlie Burchill helped, with some songs recorded in Gorbals Studio, a former railway workers’ social club located a stone’s throw from the high-rise estates of the city’s Southside where the pair took their first musical steps. It was in this building that Jim and Charlie played their first gig, as teenagers in a school glam-rock band, and emotions were understandably high on their return.

The genesis of Simple Minds Acoustic can be traced back to a rare live session the band recorded for the Chris Evans Breakfast Show in September 2014, while promoting their 16th studio album, Big Music. The reaction, to the band’s surprise, was overwhelmingly favourable.

With this in mind, the band began 2016 by putting together an acoustic set for the Zermatt Unplugged Festival in the Swiss Alps. Having spent weeks working on meticulously layered acoustic arrangements of their best-loved songs for that 90-minute performance, they began hatching plans to record them.

As a group who formed in the punk era and found their mojo through a shared love of Bowie, Kraftwerk and electronic dance, Simple Minds are not natural acoustic adventurers, but they have done a remarkable job here, adding fresh nuance to brilliant songs without trampling on sacred memories.

Simple Minds’ career has seen them be responsible for some of the most innovative and enduring anthems in rock music and they are widely regarded as one of the best live bands in the world.