Hard-Fi to play intimate warm-up show before big reunion gigs

Hard-Fi are set to play an intimate warm-up show later this month ahead of their big reunion gigs in Manchester and London.

The Staines band announced earlier this year that they would reform for a ‘Stars Of CCTV’ anniversary gig in London, which sold out in 10 minutes.

Now, Hard-Fi have quietly put tickets for an intimate warm-up gig on sale. The band will perform at Milton Keynes’ 150-capacity Craufurd Arms on September 29 – one day before they return to the stage in Manchester at the Neighbourhood Festival launch party.

Tickets are priced at £34.50 and can be purchased from seetickets.com now. Two days after the gig, the band will headline London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town to celebrate the 17th anniversary of their debut album. The Craufurd Arms gig will be their first since 2014.

Speaking to NME after the London gig sold out, frontman Richard Archer said the group would like to do more shows. “What that might be, right now I’ve no idea,” he said. “We need to sit down with our promoter and work it all out.”

Asked why now is the right time for the band to get back together, Archer said, prior to their hiatus, things had become “a struggle”. “It had got so hard, we thought we should have a break, and that break became eight years,” he explained.

“Also, a lot of the things we were talking about in our songs are happening more than ever now. I get frustrated and angry, and surely the current shit-show can’t go on much longer. If someone wants to start a riot and they need some bodies, I’ll be there; so long as there’s a school pick-up time so I can collect my kids.”

When Hard-Fi announced their return, Archer also hinted that new music could be on the horizon. “We might through in a couple of new tunes while we’re there,” he said during a livestream announcing the London gig.

In May, he told NME he is “always coming up with ideas”. “I started another band, OffWorld, a couple of years ago,” he said. “We’ve made an album I’m very proud of that I want released. Something needs to happen with it and, now Hard-Fi doing this, maybe people will start to return my calls. I’m trying to decide what songs are for Hard-Fi and what are OffWorld’s, but maybe I’m over-thinking it.

“‘Stars Of CCTV’ was just the best songs I’d written about my life at that time, celebrating a life that was pretty boring and wanting something different, but which was still fun because I was making music with my friends.”