Paul Heaton announces summer date for Cardiff Castle

Paul Heaton, the Beautiful South and Housemartins great, is heading to Wales this summer for what promises to be another incredible show at Cardiff Castle.

Paul will headline at the iconic outdoor venue on Wednesday June 26^th,featuring guest singer Rianne Downey, the Cardiff show will see Paul Heaton performing songs from throughout his career including classic tracks from The Beautiful South and The Housemartins.

Tickets go on general sale at 9.30am Friday from depotlive.co.uk

Music legend

Paul Heaton is one of the UK’s most successful songwriters. His total sales across his catalogue (The Housemartins, The Beautiful South, solo, and Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott) is 8.8 million in the UK, and 13 million globally.

His songwriting genius was recognised at the prestigious Ivor Awards 2022 where he was presented with a long overdue gong for ‘Outstanding Song Collection’.

Paul first came to prominence in the early 80s as front man of The Housemartins (the same group that gave us Norman ‘Fatboy Slim’ Cook).  The Housemartins released two albums ‘London 0 Hull 4’ (1986) and ‘The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death’ (1987).

In 1988 Heaton formed The Beautiful South, who released 10 hugely successful albums – ‘Welcome To The Beautiful South’, Choke, ‘0898 Beautiful South’, ‘Miaow’, ‘Blue Is The Colour’, ‘Quench’, ‘Painting It Red’, ‘Gaze’, ‘Golddiggas, Headnodders & Pholk Songs’ and ‘Superbi’. In 2001 Heaton took a break from The Beautiful South and released his first solo album ‘Fat Chance’.

The Beautiful South called it a day in 2007 citing ‘musical similarities’.  Jacqui Abbott was lead vocalist in The Beautiful South from 1994 to 2000 and she sang many of their signature hits including ‘Rotterdam’, ‘Perfect 10’, ‘Don’t Marry Her’ and ‘Dream A Little Dream’.

Paul Heaton went on to release two further solo albums: ‘The Cross-Eyed Rambler’ and ‘Acid Country’.  In 2011 Heaton wrote a musical called ‘The 8^th’ based on the Seven Deadly Sins and asked Jacqui to sing one of the parts.  They have since released five acclaimed albums as a duo: ‘What Have We Become’, ‘Wisdom, Laughter and Lines’, ‘Crooked Calypso’, ‘Manchester Calling’ and ‘N.K-Pop’.  In 2019 Paul released a career spanning compilation of his biggest hits entitled ‘The Last King Of Pop’.

60th celebrations

2022 saw Heaton reach a significant birthday, which he celebrated in typically idiosyncratic style by putting £1,000 behind the bar of 60 carefully chosen pubs across the UK and Ireland so that fans could have a drink on him.

The headlining show for Cardiff Castle is presented by promoters DEPOT Live and Cuffe and Taylor.

Nick Saunders from DEPOT Live said: “We’re looking forward to giving Paul Heaton a big Welsh welcome; he will be a great addition to our incredible line-up of artists for the summer season at Cardiff Castle.”

Paul Heaton is the latest headliner revealed for what promises to be a stunning summer at Cardiff Castle. He joins indie music legends Manic Street Preachers and Suede who will play two consecutive sold-out co-headline shows, a double-headlining show from US alt rockers The Smashing Pumpkins and Weezer, British rock band IDLES and headlining shows from Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Avril Lavigne, JLS, Tom Grennan, Madness, Rick Astley, Crowded House and The National with more to be announced.

Tickets are all priced at £35. Pre-sale tickets can be access from 9.30am Thursday by signing up here.

For more information and to purchase tickets go to depotlive.co.uk