Foy Vance To Play Dublin’s Academy In December

Foy Vance has just announced his highly anticipated live return with a headline date at The Academy on Thursday, 8 December 2016.

Foy Vance knows how to write a song. It’s a naturally-born but dedicatedly-finessed skill that has led him to collaborate with artists as diverse as Plan B, Sheryl Crow and Rudimental, synced his music on multiple TV shows ranging from Grey’s Anatomy to the finale of Sons Of Anarchy, and caught the ears of some of the biggest players (in every sense) in music, from Elton John to Ed Sheeran.

So it is that in the run-up to the release of his new album, Vance travelled to Nashville. It’s a long way from home for the Irishman, both from the place of his birth (Bangor, Northern Ireland) and the place of his residence (Aberfeldy, Scotland). But for an inveterate songwriter, Music City is an irresistible draw, a place where Vance can work with the best of the best. Not, Vance clarifies, for himself or his own material. For one thing, he’s already completed his new album, and with songs of the calibre and single-minded brilliance of the dozen that comprise The Wild Swan, there’s no need for any outside assistance.

Now, with the impassioned, rootsy, rousing The Wild Swan – an album that makes nods to, and takes cues from, proper heroes ranging from Noam Chomsky to Ziggy Stardust to WB Yeats – the pair’s relationship moves to another level. Sheeran has signed Vance to Gingerbread Man Records, the label he launched in 2015 with Jamie Lawson and his self-titled, chart-topping debut album.

There are other, equally deeply felt glories too, like the ancient-but-modern ‘Be Like You Belong’, Vance’s soulful rasp weaving through pedal-steel and simple piano chords, or ‘Ziggy Looked Me In The Eye’. The latter is a piano-based, strings-buoyed soul-stirrer that compresses anthemic cri de coeur into four minutes of dignified tribute to, says Vance, ‘various people who I think have been part of a revolution. I’m not talking about Che Guevara or Ghandi or even Russell Brand for that matter – I’m talking about personal revolution. I like that idea constantly revolting against your own parameters.’

The Wild Swan will be released on 13 May 2016.

Ticket Information

Tickets priced €18 inclusive of booking fee go on sale at 10am this Friday, 6 May.