Gomez marks 20th anniversary of 'Bring it On' with deluxe reissue, tour

“No other record captures that period so perfectly,” says Elbow’s Guy Garvey. “The concerns of the songs, the stories, the experimental sounds. It was so brave for a band to record themselves at that time: it allowed a direct and undiluted account of the band as aspirational, big-hearted friends in love with making music and each other. It dared us to record ourselves. But they did it first. It’s the most deserving recipient of the Mercury Prize in its history: a breathlessly ambitious and lovingly crafted masterpiece. It should be called Bring It 'The Fuck' On.”

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Gomez’s Mercury Music Prize winning debut album, Bring It On will be re-mastered and reissued on April 20, 2018 digitally, and May 18, 2018 as a super-deluxe 4CD set with an accompanying remastered double LP release.

The 4CD 20th Anniversary edition of Bring It On contains the original, classic album remastered by Frank Arkwright @ Abbey Road studios and 35 previously unreleased tracks including 25 demos (recorded between January 1996 and August 1997) - 13 of which are appearing on an official Gomez release for the first time.

Gomez will be playing the album in its entirety on all of their upcoming tour dates in the U.K., Ireland, Australia and North America.

In 1998, Bring it On sounded revolutionary. “Gomez came along at exactly the right moment,” says the DJ Steve Lamacq, who championed the band on his Radio 1 show. “After Britpop had collapsed in on itself, there was a massive hole on the Evening Session, waiting to be filled. But what we found was, people reacting against the commerciality of the Britpop wave and heading off on all sorts of strange tangents. The audience was really receptive to sounds that maybe wouldn’t have fitted in a few years earlier.”

Gomez hadn’t even recorded with the intention of making an album, which is perhaps why it sounds so unforced. The basis of the album was seven tracks recorded on an ancient four-track recorder. The band’s label, Hut, had to use the home recordings – for practical reasons.

“They couldn’t recreate those recordings because they’d done them in one of their dad’s garages on the four-track, and just after they’d finished doing the last one the thing broke,” says Hut’s David Boyd. “So we decided it needed a little bit of mixing and embellishment, but not a lot, and they trotted off to Liverpool to do the touch-ups, but to all intents and purposes that was Bring It On.”

In Liverpool, engineer Ken Nelson awaited them, and helped them turn those seven tracks into a whole album. “They’d have an idea and would look to me to make it work,” Nelson says. “Their home-learned skills transferred well to the studio and I believe we learned so much from each other. I’d never worked with a band who were so creative before: it was truly exciting for me.”

The spectacular results had an immediate impact and influence. Chris Martin admired Bring It On so much that Coldplay hired Ken Nelson to produce their first album (he went on to produce three for them). Indeed, without some of Gomez’s freewheeling influence, it's much harder to imagine the British music scene making a comfortable home for the innovating likes of Alt-J, Everything Everything and Field Music, or across the pond where subsequent harmony bands blending indie, antifolk and art rock have thrived.

Bring It On went on to win 1998’s Mercury Music Prize, beating Pulp, Massive Attack, Cornershop and The Verve, with the judges describing the album as "an intriguing blend of swamp blues, bar-room rock and eerie power".

Bring It On remains the album Gomez is best known for in the U.K., but it was only the starting point for a spectacular career. The band built audiences internationally, especially in the U.S. and Australia. In the U.S., in particular, Gomez have become bigger and bigger, with their two most recent albums, A New Tide (2009) and Whatever’s on Your Mind (2011), becoming the highest-charting records of their career.

But Bring It On remains the landmark: The introduction to their singular nature. Hence the deluxe reissue. Hence the forthcoming anniversary tour on which many of the shows – including an appearance at the Royal Albert Hall – sold out in moments. Twenty years later? Once again, bring it on.

BRING IT ON – 20th ANNIVERSARY 4-CD SUPER DELUXE EDITION

Super Deluxe box set containing: 35 previously unreleased tracks. Collection features 25 demos & 13 songs never released in any form by Gomez, including covers of Neil Young’s “Unknown Legend” and “T-Bone Walker’s Mean Old World” plus the band’s 1998 Glastonbury performance and BBC sessions.

Package includes a 10,000-word essay by music writer Paul Stokes, with new interviews with the band and those close to them.

BRING IT ON – 20TH ANNIVERSARY 2xLP EDITION

Red & Yellow colored vinyl edition + Standard black vinyl edition both in gatefold packaging.

4CD Deluxe Edition - https://Gomez.lnk.to/BIO-20
2LP Deluxe Edition - https://Gomez.lnk.to/BIO-20Vinyl

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES

06/05/18 Toronto, ONT, Canada – Danforth Music Hall
06/07/18 Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel
06/08/18 Boston, MA – Royale
06/09/18 Washington, DC – Lincoln Theatre
06/10/18 Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel
06/12/18 Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse
06/13/18 Nashville, TN – Cannery Ballroom
06/15/18 Chicago, IL – Vic Theatre
06/16/18 Chicago, IL – Vic Theatre
06/19/18 Aspen, CO – Belly Up Aspen
06/20/18 Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre
06/24/18 Oakland, CA – Fox Theatre
06/26/18 Portland, OR – Revolution Hall
06/27/18 Vancouver, BC, Canada – Commodore Ballroom
06/28/18 Seattle, WA – The Showbox
 
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