For the first time ever, Brian Eno is taking a live solo show on the road. He’ll perform a concert program called Ships across Europe this fall, built around 2016 album The Ship and featuring new and old compositions from his catalog. He will be backed by the Baltic Sea Philharmonic (with conductor Kristjan Järvi), the actor Peter Serafinowicz, and Eno’s longtime collaborators Leo Abrahams and Peter Chilvers. The run concludes with two shows in one night at London’s Southbank Centre on October 30; find all the dates—including shows in Venice, Paris, Berlin, and Utrecht—below. 

Despite touring with Roxy Music in the 1970s and sporadically with other artists, Eno has only played sporadic, one-off solo shows, often as part of festival programs. In 2021, he and his brother Roger Eno performed live at the Acropolis. 

In press materials, Eno said of the new tour:

The album The Ship is an unusual piece in that it uses voice but doesn’t particularly rely on the song form. It’s an atmosphere with occasional characters drifting through it, characters lost in the vague space made by the music. There’s a sense of wartime in the background, and a sense of inevitability. There is also a sense of scale which suits an orchestra, and a sense of many people working together. I wanted an orchestra which played music the way I would like to play music: from the heart rather than just from the score. I wanted the players to be young and fresh and enthusiastic. When I first saw the Baltic Sea Philharmonic I found all that…and then noticed they were named after a sea. That sealed it!

Read Pitchfork’s review of Eno’s recent album with Fred Again.. and, below, read about Eno and John Cale’s classic “Lay My Love” in “The 250 Best Songs of the 1990s.”

Brian Eno:

10-21 Venice, Italy – Venice Biennale Musica, Teatro la Fenice (3 and 8 p.m.)
10-24 Berlin, Germany – Philharmonie Berlin
10-26 Paris, France – La Seine Musicale
10-28 Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg 
10-30 London, England – Royal Festival Hall, Southbank (6.30 and 9 p.m.)

The 250 Best Songs of the 1990s