Gene Loves Jezebel + Dawn After Dark

Gene Loves Jezebel play The Castle & Falcon on Saturday 5 December, with Dawn After Dark supporting. The headliners are led by Jay Aston, with James Stevenson and Peter Rizzo on the bill, and drummer Smiley filling in for the night. It's a Birmingham date in a run that sees them touring their latest record.

If the name rings a bell but the details are fuzzy, it's because they've been around a long time. They started in the early 1980s in Porthcawl, South Wales, formed by identical twins Michael and Jay Aston. They signed to Beggars Banquet and built a cult following across the UK and Europe, and by the mid-eighties they'd broken into the US. Their 1986 album Discover brought 'Heartache' and 'Desire' to college radio and MTV, while 'The Motion of Love' made the UK charts and 'Immigrant' hit number one on the indie album chart.

Michael left in 1988, and after their label Savage Records collapsed in 1993, the band kept going. They released a seventh album in 1999 and Dance Underwater in 2017, produced by Peter Walsh with string arrangements by Tony Visconti. In December 2023 they put out their tenth studio album, Love Death Sorrow, on Cleopatra Records, which Dave Thompson of Goldmine Magazine called one of their finest ever. Over the years they've shared stages with David Bowie, Billy Idol, Bob Dylan, The Ramones, The Kinks, Echo & the Bunnymen and New Order.

So on the night you'll get the current line-up — Jay Aston, James Stevenson and Peter Rizzo, with Smiley on drums — and Dawn After Dark opening the bill. It starts at 7pm at The Castle & Falcon, 402 Moseley Road, Birmingham B12 9AT, and tickets are £20.