CQAF 2025

40 years after the release of debut EP Religious Persuasion, Andy White is back home in Belfast and touring the UK in May/June in support of new live album The night is approaching though some would say it was morning. The tour starts at CQAF and finishes at Glastonbury, where old chum Billy Bragg has invited Andy to appear on the Left Field stage.

The story of the live album begins with the friendship between Andy and producer John Leckie (The Bends, Muse, Roy Harper, Baba Maal). The two met during one of Peter Gabriel’s recording weeks at Real World Studios and immediately hit it off, with John mixing and producing many of Andy’s recordings. After one of Andy’s concerts, John told him he wanted to buy an album of what he had just heard. A solo album recorded live. No band. No overdubs. “Where are we going to record it?” “The best-sounding room in the world – Studio Two at Abbey Road.”

On July 14, 2023, Andy and John met at Abbey Road. John got his first job there in 1970. His interview was the day the Beatles crossed the road for a photo. Andy had listened to albums recorded there and looked at photos taken there since Revolver played at primary school parties. Giles Martin was driving out as they drove in. Andy brought three guitars and an amp. John organised everything and when he took Andy down the stairs into Studio Two, told him to stop and smell the room. Nothing had changed since those great records had been recorded. You could feel it in the equipment, the fabric, the floorboards.

John had asked Andy to write his best set list. In the afternoon they recorded the first half, in the evening a small group of friends and family arrived, and they recorded the second. You can see what it looked like on the album sleeve, you can hear the room on the record. Everyone went to the café afterwards and sat drinking and talking under the photos of Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren, Cilla and the Beatles. Andy said goodbye and walked across the crossing on the way to the hire car. It was done.

The double-CD set has both evening and afternoon sessions, one on each disc. The vinyl LP has the evening session and a download code for both sessions. The live show will feature songs from throughout Andy’s songwriting career from ‘Religious Persuasion’ and ‘James Joyce’s Grave’ to ‘Italian Girls on Mopeds’ and ‘Good Luck I Hope You Make It’. The Belfast troubadour has come home.