The Levellers promise ‘really powerful’ new show in Cambridge
Celebrated British band the Levellers return with their Collective acoustic show this spring, and there’s another Cambridge gig on the horizon.
Having wowed fans and critics alike with two acoustic tours and albums in recent years, the Levellers Collective will embark on a new 17-date tour of theatres and venues around the country, including the Cambridge Corn Exchange in March.
“Essentially it’s a band, as is, playing acoustically with other musicians,” says lead singer Mark Chadwick of the whole Collective concept.
He was speaking to the Cambridge Independent while “out and about” in Sussex (the band are based in Brighton). “Basically musicians from a band [also from Brighton] called The Moulettes.”
To coincide with the tour, Mark and co will also be releasing a new live album and DVD on 7 March.
Recorded in 2023 at London’s Hackney Empire, the film “captures the spirit of the Levellers as never seen before”.
Twenty-five cameras were positioned on stage and around the venue, and the setlist consists of 22 songs – mainly acoustic arrangements of some of their best-known tracks.
Wheels, the first official song to be released from the upcoming collection, is available to stream and download now.
Originally a more uptempo song on the Levellers’ 2005 album Truth and Lies, this new acoustic version has added strings, percussion and vocal harmonies from additional band members Hannah Moule (cello, vocals), Oli Moule (percussion) and Rae Husbandes (acoustic guitar, dobro, tin whistle, percussion, vocals).
Why did the Levellers decide to release this particular live show as an album and video?
“It’s just timing really,” observes Mark, 58, “it was a standalone show so we were able to spend quite a bit of time setting up the cameras and stuff.”
Mark says he finds the acoustic shows “as powerful as it is playing the electric shows, but it’s powerful in a very different way – it’s very focused and it’s very direct”.
The band have some festivals coming up, including their own Beautiful Days festival in Devon, which will keep them busy until September, but otherwise Mark answers “not a lot” when asked what else they’ve been up to.
“It’s the first time we’ve had off for quite a while, which has been quite nice,” he reveals, “and then we’re gearing up to do another electric record next, I suspect, that’s what we normally do – in our studio in Brighton.”
The Levellers formed in 1988 and so are coming up to nearly 40 years of existence, impressively with four original members still on board.
They must still really like each other? “Remarkably, we do,” says Mark, “some bands hate each other but love each other on stage – we love each other on and off stage. We’re close – we get each other.”
He admits that the band members don’t socialise so much together off stage these days because they’re “all in different parts of the country now”.
Mark, who notes that he and the others enjoy making music “probably more so” now than ever before, concludes: “A), we’re really looking forward to going back to Cambridge, because we love that town, it’s great – we’ve got a lot of friends there anyway – and b), it’ll be really powerful, because it’s different [the show]. It’s really good.”
Fans in Cambridge can expect to hear some new arrangements of plenty of songs they know at the gig.
Levellers Collective will be coming to the Cambridge Corn Exchange on Friday, 7 March. Tickets, priced £30.50-£42.50 (including booking fee), are available from cornex.co.uk. For more on the band, go to levellers.co.uk.
