Veteran ska band Madness has announced a trio of outdoor UK concerts set to take place in the summer of 2025. The performances will follow a string of well-received outdoor shows earlier this year and will see the band perform at unique venues in Bedfordshire, Kent, and Essex.
The first concert, titled Madness at the Manor, is scheduled for 13 July at Tofte Manor in Bedfordshire. Billed as an intimate performance at a historic venue, the band told of their excitement about playing the venue through their promoter’s Instagram, saying: “We didn’t think there were any houses, county estates or fields we hadn’t played at”.
The band will go on to perform at Dreamland in Margate on 2 August as part of the Margate Summer Series and at Castle Park, Colchester, on 23 August as part of the Colchester Castle Summer Series. Tickets for Margate and Colchester will go on general sale at 9am on 29 November here. Pre-sale tickets for the Tofte Manor show will be available at 12pm on 29 November here, with any remaining tickets offered in a general sale on 2 December at 12pm.
Outdoor summer shows have become a specialty of the band in recent years, with highlights from the past year including stops at Cardiff Castle, Galway Airport, and Scarborough Open Air Theatre. This year also marked a significant milestone for the band, as their 13th studio album, Theatre Of The Absurd Presents C’est La Vie, became their first to reach number one on the UK Official Albums Chart. An enhanced edition of the album was released in June.
Retropop magazine praised the album, saying “its lead single and title song harks back to the ska sound that popularised the band some 40-odd years ago while perfectly capturing the essence of Madness in its examination of the perils of everyday life”, and noting that the release was the band’s “most pop-oriented in years”.
Emerging from the two-tone craze of the late 70s and early 80s, the Camden Town ensemble rose to fame with their urban British spin given to Caribbean rock-steady and early ska. Early hits like ‘One Step Beyond’ and ‘Nightboat to Cairo’ show the band in their element covering or borrowing heavily from these genres’ classics, and propelled the band to be London’s answer to the burgeoning Coventry ska and two-tone scene, alongside the likes of Bad Manners. The band later pivoted to a more pop-based sound into the 1980s but never drifted far from their themes of working class London life, delivered with trademark humour and a taste for pastiche.
