Busted and McFly have announced details of a new UK and Ireland arena tour, set to kick off next year – find ticket details below.
The announcement comes after fans were caught off guard at McFly’s show at The O2 last night (October 9), when fellow UK pop-punk icons Busted stormed the stage and announced that they’d be hitting the road together in 2025.
At the London gig – which saw Tom Fletcher and co. sell out the arena as they celebrated 21 years of their formation – the two bands confirmed that next year’s co-headline tour dates will see them go head-to-head.
Titled the ‘Busted vs McFly’ tour, the dates kick off on September 16 with an opening night at the BP Pulse Live arena in Birmingham, before continuing through the month with stops planned for both London’s OVO Arena Wembley and The O2, taking place on September 19 and 20 respectively, as well as arena dates in Cardiff, Sheffield, Leeds and Aberdeen.
From there, seven more arena gigs are scheduled for the following month, and will commence with a show at the OVO Hydro venue in Glasgow, followed by stops in Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Manchester, Dublin and Belfast.
Tickets go on sale on October 18 at 9am. Pre-sale options are also available from October 16 at 9am. Visit here to buy tickets and find a full list of new tour dates below.
SEPTEMBER
16 – bp pulse Live, Birmingham
19 – OVO Arena Wembley, London
20 – The O2, London
23 – Utilita Arena, Cardiff
26 – Utilita Arena, Sheffield
27 – First Direct Arena, Leeds
30 – P&J Live, Aberdeen
OCTOBER
2 – OVO Hydro, Glasgow
7 – M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool
10 – Utilita Arena, Newcastle
14 – Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham
17 – AO Arena, Manchester
20 – 3Arena, Dublin
21 – SSE Arena, Belfast
Announcing the tour, McFly said: “Busted gatecrashed our show last night (not cool), and challenged us to a VS tour next year. They’re old men now, and we are gonna blow them and their carers off the stage next year.
“We’ve had a great time celebrating our 21st birthday this week and next year is going to be even better – P.S Busted Suck.”
Busted added: “There’s been a lot of talk recently…. This is where the talking ends! We are ready to show who is the better band once and for all. McFly suck and Busted Rock!”
For McFly, the announcement comes as they have been celebrating their 21st anniversary as a band, following them first breaking onto the scene with the hit ‘Five Colours In Her Hair’. Their latest album arrived last year in the form of ‘Power To Play’, which peaked at Number Two on the UK album charts.
Since then, they have gone on to play two surprise shows in one day at London’s Underworld, as well as a slot at the Royal Variety Performance, a sold-out gig at Alexandra Palace, and the two aforementioned O2 shows.
As for Busted, the band broke into the spotlight with their debut single ‘What I Go To School For’ 21 years ago, and went on to have huge UK hits like ‘Crashed The Wedding’, ‘Year 3000’ and ‘Who’s David’. Their latest release came last year, when they tipped the charts with their ‘Greatest Hits 2.0’ album.
Earlier this year, they hinted to fans that they have more in the pipeline too, telling Rolling Stone UK that they have been working on new music with former Bring Me the Horizon musician Jordan Fish.
“We’re currently in the process of writing a new album and we’ve been out in LA with Jordan Fish,” said frontman Charlie Simpson.
“We’re doing some writing with him and we’ve got some great songs already. We want to try and get a whole bunch of songs that we can choose from because I think this next album is very important for Busted. We had such a great year last year and I feel like there’s a lot of love out there for Busted. We want to make a record that pleases the fans and takes Busted on into the future.”
Bassist Matt Willis added: “We’re experimenting, we trying to not be tied down to anything too hard right now. We’re in a position where we give less fucks and we just want to do what makes us really fucking stoked.”
He continued: “Jordan’s the best thing to happen to Busted in a long time. He’s the most creative person and he’s different to us because he loves all the same shit as us, but he brings all the stuff we’ve never had. It’s this added little element of genius that is really unique. I think people would be surprised to hear what we’re doing with him. It’s not necessarily what you might think. We’re experimenting. It’s fun.”
This isn’t the first time that McFly and Busted have joined forces. Back in 2013, Tom Fletcher and co. teamed up with Busted members Matt Willis and James Bourne to form the McBusted supergroup. They embarked on a tour and released their self-titled debut in December 2014, before going on hiatus.
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