Deacon Blue are delighted to announce the 2025 release of a brand new studio album - which will be entitled ‘The Great Western Road’, released on 21 March 2025 by Cooking Vinyl – plus two sets of dates in the UK and Ireland. To celebrate the release, they will perform 3Arena Wednesday, 8 October 2025.
2025 marks 40 years since Ricky Ross met Dougie Vipond and they started to form Deacon Blue, the songs on ‘The Great Western Road’ reflect the journey the band has taken and remain honest to the age and experience they all share. Ricky Ross: “It’s just the next part of the adventure and it’s as exciting now as it was back in 1988”.
The album will be preceded by the single ‘Late ’88’ on 29 November 2024 which fondly remembers the care-free excitement of those early days. ‘The Great Western Road’, recorded at the legendary Rockfield Studios, sees Ricky Ross and (Deacon Blue guitarist and long term collaborator) Gregor Philp return to production duties, having last produced the band’s Top 5 charting and their last full length album, 2020’s ‘City Of Love’. This album was recorded by Matt Butler, who last worked with the band on their debut, ‘Raintown’.
There will be a limited run of five theatre shows in late March / April ‘25 to herald the arrival of the album, followed by 15 arena shows across the UK & Eire , which kick off in Liverpool on 19 September 2025, they play Wembley Arena for the first time since 1990, and finish with two hometown shows at the Glasgow Hydro on 10 and 11 October. All tour dates as below; the shows will go on sale on at 10am on 29 November 2024.
Ricky Ross says of the two differing sets of dates, “I love the idea that a circus coming to town is a temporary existence, a little bit of magic suddenly appears in the middle of a town or a village and then it goes away. It’s very similar to what you do live. The live experience is so ephemeral, at the end of a show people lose all their inhibitions, and then it’s over. You have to be there. That’s what’s magical about it.”
“There will be two different shows, we’re curating a show that changes and evolves, pulling out little surprises every now and again. The theatres are more intimate and give us a chance to bring out one or two things that we wouldn’t do in the arenas. They give us a chance to play songs from the new album and songs from other albums that we have never played before. And we have some amazing nights at the big shows in the arenas, we suit the show to the place we’re playing and our mantra is ‘we want people to have the best night of their lives’. Every night has got to be brilliant.”
Truly, fans of this loved and revered Scottish band have plenty to celebrate next year: 2025 brings not only the 40th anniversary, and two sets of concert dates, but also ‘The Great Western Road’ studio album.
