Rick Astley announces headline tour including Manchester date

Singer Rick Astley has announced details of a UK headline tour and long-awaited studio album. The tour, which starts with two dates at London’s Royal Albert Hall this November, will be followed by massive arena dates in 2024 culminating at Manchester’s AO Arena.

On the tour, he'll be joined by special guests Belinda Carlisle and The Feeling. The news comes as Astley prepares to make his Glastonbury debut this Saturday when he opens the Pyramid Stage. Earlier this month, the singer said he was "in shock" ahead of "Bonkers" show at Worthy Farm, and said it was "an amazing honour and privilege" to be asked to play.

Tickets for his headline tour will be available for pre-sale at 9.30am on Wednesday, June 21, and will remain live until remaining tickets go on general sale from 9.30am on Friday, June 23 via Ticketmaster.

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It comes as the 'Never Gonna Give You Up' singer also announces his long awaited ninth studio album ‘Are We There Yet?' which will be released on October 6th. It marks the first release since 2018's 'Beautiful Life', and many of the songs on the album were started in lockdown 2020, but left deliberately unfinished until it was feasible to play them live again.

As with ‘50’ and ‘Beautiful Life’, the album was entirely written, recorded and produced by Rick at his home studio in south-west London. He performed almost everything you hear throughout the record, the only exceptions being brass, keyboards and some backing vocals.

It’s been 36 years since the English singer first shot to fame, and he's still winning over new fans - whether he’s performing with Foo Fighters, Take That or Stockport's very own Blossoms, becoming an unlikely social media sensation,