Elbow and Everything Everything are set to perform for the ‘Passport: Back to Our Roots’ benefit gig series.
Guy Garvey and co will perform at Manchester’s intimate Night & Day Cafe, hopefully next year, depending on when live shows return, whilst the Indie rockers will play Bedford’s Esquires as part of the campaign to support grassroots venues across the UK who are at risk of closure due to the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Guy said: "This is a simple way of looking after the very roots of British music, and will result in some powerful, joyous shows when we can at last see each other again. I’m very proud to be involved."
Other confirmed acts include Public Service Broadcasting, who will play the Amersham Arms in London, and The Slow Readers Club will headline The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge.
More acts and the dates are yet to be confirmed.
To attend, gig-goers can enter a prize draw for tickets from August 17 over on Crowdfunder, with a minimum donation of £5 required.
80 per cent of the money raised from the prize draw will go to the Music Venue Trust, with 50 half of the funds going to the venue and the other half to the Crisis Fund, which they setup amid the pandemic.
What’s more, 20 per cent will go to the charity Inner City Music, who are working on the administration side of the events and will cover the overheads.
The announcement of the ‘Passport: Back to Our Roots’ series comes after Frank Turner did his bit for music venues.
The ‘I Still Believe’ singer had to cut his tour short in March this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, and he kept his fans – and himself – entertained with a series of weekly live-stream fundraisers playing his albums in full to benefit a specific venue.
For the penultimate event, he swapped his London flat for the Grand in Clapham as he performed in an empty room.
And the musician admitted he "nearly cried" when he walked back into a venue for the first time in months.
Reflecting on the experience, he exclusively told BANG Showbiz: "I was walking into a room that I knew as an ideal of a gig venue.
"It was walking in through a kitchen, into a big live room, up a ramp at the side of the stage, up a flight of stairs to a dressing room with an undersized bin and a crappy mirror.
"And then being on stage with a front of house, a wedge, and a mic stand – I nearly cried. I’d forgotten, this is home."
He later returned to the Grand for the second time as part of a government pilot scheme which – besides not being financially viable as a model for most venues – included restrictions on singing along.