Category Archives: Lists

Released earlier this year in the U.K., Graffiti on the Train entered the U.K. charts at number 3 and has remained in the Top 20 ever since. Affirming that this is their best album in a decade, the album has quickly gone gold and is well on its way to platinum status.

Written by lead vocalist and guitarist Kelly Jones and produced by Kelly Jones and Jim Lowe, Graffiti on the Train is the final piece in the puzzle for a newly refined and cinematic Stereophonics, a band that has London’s Sunday Times calling this album their “least conventional yet”, praising its “newfound lightness of touch” and confirming “the album contains Jones’s best work of his career.”

A storyteller first and foremost Kelly Jones unravels storylines and sketches characters with poetic finesse – inspired by the screenplay he has been working on of the same name, Graffiti On A Train is a fascinating, filmic LP unlike anything the group have attempted in the past. Loosely telling the story of two friends who flee the country after a tragic accident, the record is both reflective and surprisingly fragile.

We find Jones at the helm of all the videos from this album, which he has both written and directed including the first North American single, “Indian Summer.” Upon release in the U.K. earlier this year, “Indian Summer” marked the band’s 26th Top 40 hit on the U.K. charts.

As one of the best live bands imported from the U.K. in the last twenty years, North America will be treated to select tour dates and an Indian Summer to be remembered. At a recent U.K. show, John Earls of the Daily Star noted, “Girls sat on their boyfriends shoulders, Welsh flags were held aloft, beer was thrown everywhere and the singalongs kept coming.”

Having spanned decades of success selling over 9 million career albums and currently sitting at the top of U.K. album charts, this return to the other side of the pond is a tour not to be missed. Their North American tour kicks off in Philadelphia on September 19 at the Theatre of Living Arts. See below for more tour dates.

Stereophonics North American Tour Dates

• September 19         Philadelphia – Theatre of Living Arts
• September 20         Boston – House of Blues
• September 21         New York – Terminal 5
• September 22         Washington DC – 9.30 Club
• September 27         Detroit – St Andrews Hall
• September 28         Chicago – Vic Theatre
• September 29         Minneapolis – Mill City Nights
• October 1                  Denver – Bluebird Theatre
• October 4                  Seattle – Showbox @ The Market
• October 5                  Portland – Wonder Ballroom
• October 8                  San Francisco – The Fillmore
• October 10               Los Angeles – Fonda Theatre
• October 13               Mexico City – Corona Capital Festival

Here’s one of my FAVORITE Stereophonics songs: