Glasgow art-rockers Life Without Buildings are set to play their first show in their home city since 2002 – find tickets here.
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The quartet, who broke up that same year, announced their reunion earlier this month with two shows at London venue Koko as part of Rough Trade’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
Both shows have sold out, but fans now have the chance to see them at Glasgow’s Saint Luke’s on November 17, days before their London shows, with fellow Glaswegians Comber in support.
Tickets to the Saint Luke’s show go on sale at 10am on Friday (January 30), and tickets will be available here. To join the waiting list for the London shows, go here.
Life Without Buildings’ reunion follows singer Sue Tompkins teaming up with Sleaford Mods for their single ‘No Touch’ last December. It appears on their new album, ‘The Demise Of Planet X’, which was released on January 16.
“She’s absolutely fantastic,” Sleaford Mods frontman Jason Williamson told NME in October. “I wasn’t aware of Life Without Buildings or Sue before the sessions. We’d been liaising a lot with Rough Trade on this album because of their wealth of knowledge. We had a meeting about it and they were like, ‘Have you heard of Sue Tompkins?’
“I hadn’t, so they sent me their album and her voice was just beautiful. We had a lengthy phone call, she came to Bristol and she did it in about three hours. She had a cold as well, which kind of adds to it. You know it’s her, but it reminded me of ‘Debut’ era Björk. It was quite punky.”
Life Without Buildings first formed in 1999 and they became known for Tompkins’ ‘talk-sung’ vocal style as well as supporting The Strokes at their first-ever headline show in London. They released their first and only album, ‘Any Other City’, in February 2001, becoming cult favourites due to Tompkins’ vocals and their spiky blend of post-punk and math rock.
After they broke up the following year, guitarist Robert Johnston said that Tompkins wanted to focus on her career as a visual artist, that none of the band members had envisioned turning music into a career, and that they felt pressure after the band they started for fun was becoming serious.
Since then, they released a live album recorded in 2001, ‘Live At The Annandale Hotel’, in 2007. Tompkins and bassist Chris Evans worked as visual artists, Johnston became a graphic designer, and drummer Will Bradley worked as a writer.
In 2021, their song ‘The Leanover’ went viral on TikTok after singer-songwriter Beabadoobee posted a video of herself lip-syncing to it on the video-sharing platform.
Evans said he thought the renewed popularity was down to the song’s ability to “take you somewhere or to a certain somebody – it can also be a wilful thought, say if you’re singing along in the backseat of your stepdad’s car.”
Tompkins added: “I love discovering new music, old music, anything that just makes me feel something new and excites me… I think it’s just that you find things at the right time.”