The Divine Comedy will celebrate their 30th anniversary this year by reissuing their entire back catalogue.
They’ll also play a five-night stand at London’s Barbican in September, playing two albums in full each night, before repeating the run at Paris’s Cité de la Musique. See dates below:
September
2nd LONDON, Barbican – Liberation / Promenade
3rd LONDON, Barbican – Casanova / A Short Album About Love
4th LONDON, Barbican – Fin de Siècle / Regeneration
5th LONDON, Barbican – Absent Friends / Victory For The Comic Muse
6th LONDON, Barbican – Bang Goes The Knighthood / Foreverland
25th PARIS, Cité de la Musique – Liberation / Promenade
26th PARIS, Cité de la Musique – Casanova / A Short Album About Love
27th PARIS, Cité de la Musique – Fin de Siècle / Regeneration
28th PARIS, Cité de la Musique – Absent Friends / Victory For The Comic Muse
29th PARIS, Cité de la Musique – Bang Goes The Knighthood / Foreverland
London tickets go on general sale from 10am on Friday (March 13) and Paris from April 27. For ticket links go here.
Prior to the shows, on August 21, Divine Comedy Records will remaster and reissue nine of the band’s albums on CD, LP and digitally: Liberation (1993), Promenade (1994), Casanova (1996), A Short Album About Love (1997), Fin de Siècle (1998), Regeneration (2001), Absent Friends (2004), Victory for the Comic Muse (2006) and Bang Goes the Knighthood (2010).
Each CD release comes with a second CD of B-sides, demos and alternate versions curated by Neil Hannon, much of which has never been heard before. The CD release of A Short Album About Love comes with a DVD of A Short Film About A Short Album About Love – a previously unreleased 50-minute film of the Shepherd’s Bush Empire concert at which Short Album… was recorded.
Additionally, a 12xCD boxset called Venus, Cupid, Folly And Time – Thirty Years Of The Divine Comedy brings together all the remastered CD albums and bonus material, as well as new editions of 2016’s Foreverland and 2019’s Office Politics updated with bonus material and liner notes. It also features Juveneilia – an exclusive 2xCD compilation of early material put together by Hannon from his personal archive, including recordings stretching back to 1984. It contains the ‘lost’ 1990 album Fanfare For The Comic Muse and long out-of-print EPs “Timewatch” and “Europop.”
All the reissues can be pre-ordered here.
