Just because Fran Healy and Andy Dunlop are out on an acoustic tour of the U.S. doesn’t bode ill for the Scottish quartet Travis. In fact, after six albums and nearly 20 years, things couldn’t be better.
Healy and Dunlop will be utilizing downtime on their duo jaunt to pen tunes for the next Travis album. Healy was inspired to tour in this format (which is being subheaded “A Chronological Acoustical Journey Through the Travis Back Catalogue: Laugh Out Loud Stories, Scottish Accents, Handsome Scottish Men, Naked Torsos”) when he was asked to make a solo acoustic appearance in Austria last year. What had been proposed to Healy as a 10-minute performance expanded to an hour when he showed up for the gig. Improvising madly, he began his set with the first song he ever wrote and finished with his most recent composition and sprinkled an hour’s worth of Travis’ musical timeline in between.
The response to the show was so overwhelmingly positive that Healy immediately began thinking about structuring the show as a legitimate tour. In addition to the songs, he's prepared something of a travelogue to accompany the music, offering up a slideshow and anecdotes about the how and the where and the why surrounding the writing of the songs that have populated Travis’ catalog.
The twosome plays the Southgate House Wednesday. Tickets are $15 in advance, $18 day of show.
(Buy tickets, check out performance times and get venue details here.)
