Sabrina, Lana and You: Stereoboard's Guide To The Best Tours In The First Half of 2025
Thursday, 30 January 2025
Written by Stereoboard
With Blue Monday behind us, it’s time to look forward to something again. The first half of 2025 promises to be one for the books in terms of live music, with plenty of huge names set to hit the road before festival season gets its hooks over the summer. Head below for our one-stop guide to the biggest, brightest and most interesting tours set to touch down in the UK and Ireland over the next few months.
February
Following the release of their first album in six years last autumn, 2025 is set to be a big one for Snow Patrol. The indie-pop veterans are poised to tour heavily in support of ‘The Forest is a Path’, beginning with a run of massive arena shows in February. Toting their new material in the same bag as dewy-eyed classics such as Run and Chasing Cars, they’ll land in London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Hull, Glasgow, Manchester, Dublin and Belfast ahead of a summer schedule that’s growing more packed by the second, with huge headline sets at festivals including Latitude and TRNSMT sitting alongside atmospheric dates as part of the Forest Live series, plus much, much more. Also this month there’s the small matter of Jack White’s pyrotechnic live staging of his ‘No Name’ record, with the guitar great set to play relatively small rooms in the form of London’s Troxy, the O2 Academy Birmingham and Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom.
Also in February: Tinashe, You Me At Six, James Bay, James Blunt, JPEGMAFIA, Inhaler, Cyndi Lauper, Bowling For Soup, Opeth, Toto, The None
March
Let’s keep this short n’ sweet: tickets for Sabrina Carpenter’s UK and Ireland arena shows are like gold dust for a reason. Having levelled up last year thanks to massive hits such as Espresso and Taste, the former Disney star’s gigs in Dublin, Birmingham, London, Glasgow and Manchester look like a runway for a wild 2o25, including a potentially summer-defining show at Hyde Park in July, alongside Clairo and Beabadoobee. Make sure to get down early for her March shows, too, with the excellent Rachel Chinouriri set to open following the release of ‘What a Devastating Turn of Events’ last spring. Meanwhile, it’ll be intriguing to see what Gracie Abrams does with a bit more room to manoeuvre — the singer-songwriter’s The Secret Of Us Tour will take over arenas in Nottingham, Leeds, London, Manchester, Cardiff, Dublin and Glasgow, with the shows doubtless informed by Abrams’ experiences opening for Taylor Swift during her history-making Eras Tour.
Also in March: FKA Twigs, Usher, The Wombats, Lauren Mayberry, The Game, Skunk Anansie, The Darkness, Limp Bizkit, Clairo, David Gray, FLO
April
Sugababes have enjoyed the sort of revival in recent years that their discography demands, and that’ll take another big step forward this spring as they hit arenas in Leeds, London, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle, Glasgow, Belfast and Dublin. Siobhan Donaghy, Mutya Buena and Keisha Buchanan have developed a rep in recent years as a bulletproof festival band but their headline shows really drive home just how varied, exciting and reliable the whole Sugababes catalogue is. Be prepared for hit after hit after hit, likely followed by another hit. Also in April there's the small matter of Central Cee’s Can't Rush Greatness Tour. The West London rapper will call at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena, Manchester’s Co-Op Live, Dublin’s 3Arena, the O2 Arena in London and Glasgow’s OVO Hydro, while for those of you whose tastes skew satanic, there’s Ghost’s latest pop-metal jamboree, where Tobias Forge, his latex mask and the Nameless Ghouls will doubtless have a few twin leads and Abba-style melodies to spare.
Also in April: Manic Street Preachers, Anastacia, Imelda May, Olly Alexander, Primal Scream, Roger Daltrey, The Zutons
May
Of all the arena-sized spectacles heading our way this year, few of them have a sense of creative possibility built into them quite like Tyler, The Creator’s Chromakopia World Tour. We’ll know more about it after the North American leg kicks off in the coming weeks but, for now, there’s an exciting question mark hanging over where he’ll take us when he touches down at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham before three nights at the O2 Arena in London and two apiece in Dublin, Manchester and Glasgow. Also this month, there’s another go-round for Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, with three shows in the diary at Manchester’s Co-op Live arena before a two night stand at Anfield Stadium in Liverpool, where you can probably expect his version of Twist and Shout to get a workout.
Also in May: Robbie Williams, Kylie, Supergrass, Pixies, Kaiser Chiefs, Tate McRae, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Iggy Pop, Wunderhorse, James, Dionne Warwick, Bryan Adams, Twenty One Pilots, Steven Wilson, Jasmine.4.t
June
It’s hard to know where to start with this month’s action — there’s a lot of star-wattage inbound for the early throes of summer. But the most intriguing of the mega-spectacles might belong to Lana Del Rey, who will bend Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, Glasgow’s Hampden Park, Anfield Stadium in Liverpool and Dublin’s Aviva Stadium to her idiosyncratic will before playing two nights at Wembley Stadium in London. Given the tiered meanings and dense, detailed worlds of her songs, it’ll be fascinating to see how she dials them up to fill these huge spaces. The rest of June’s attractions are more familiar but no less exciting, with everyone from Dua Lipa and Guns N’ Roses to Charli XCX, Linkin Park and Nine Inch Nails all set to stage their own eye-popping events up and down the country. There’s also a pretty hench Download bill to contend with, as Green Day and Korn are joined at the summit by Sleep Token, the masked metallers who are stepping up to a rarefied position as festival headliners.
Also in June: Billy Joel, Deftones, Iron Maiden, Justin Timberlake, Kings of Leon, Lionel Richie, McFly, Santana, Sting, Elbow, Denzel Curry, Basement Jaxx, The Corrs, Pendulum, Texas, Simple Minds
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
We don't run any advertising! Our editorial content is solely funded by lovely people like yourself using Stereoboard's listings when buying tickets for live events. To keep supporting us, next time you're looking for concert, festival, sport or theatre tickets, please search for "Stereoboard". It costs you nothing, you may find a better price than the usual outlets, and save yourself from waiting in an endless queue on Friday mornings as we list ALL available sellers!