ABC will take The Lexicon of Love on tour next summer for its 40th anniversary

14 September 2021, 12:30

The band will play a homecoming show in Sheffield 40 years to the day of the original release.

ABC have announced a special tour of their classic album The Lexicon of Love.

Martin Fry will mark the 40th anniversary of the release of their debut album with a run of ten shows in collaboration with the Southbank Sinfonia and ABC's longtime collaborator Anne Dudley.

The band's homecoming show in Sheffield will take place on June 21, exactly 40 years to the day of the release of the album in 1982.

ABC - The Look Of Love (Official Video)

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ABC will also play the Royal Albert Hall, where they first played their orchestrated Lexicon of Love shows.

Tickets go on sale this Friday, September 17 at 10am via Gigs and Tours and Ticketmaster.

The full June 2022 tour dates are as follows:

• Friday 17 – Oxford New Theatre
• Saturday 18 – Bath Forum
• Monday 20 – Birmingham Symphony Hall
• Tuesday 21 – Sheffield City Hall
• Thursday 23 – London Royal Albert Hall
• Friday 24 – Newcastle O2 City Hall
• Saturday 25 – Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
• Monday 27 – Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
• Tuesday 28 – Manchester Bridgewater Hall
• Thursday 30 – Southend Cliffs Pavilion

The Lexicon of Love is widely accepted to be ABC's masterpiece, and it contains the hit singles 'Tears Are Not Enough', 'Poison Arrow', 'The Look of Love' and 'All of My Heart'.

ABC - Poison Arrow (Official Video)

Led by sole remaining founding member Martin Fry, ABC have toured The Lexicon of Love several times in recent years.

The album was played in full accompanied by Anne Dudley and the BBC Concert Orchestra and original album producer Trevor Horn in 2009 at the Royal Albert Hall.

The 30th anniversary was marked with a show at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in December 2012 featuring Dudley and the Southbank Sinfonia, with the same lineup reuniting at the same venue in March 2014 and again for a four-date mini-tour in November 2015.

ABC released the sequel album The Lexicon of Love II in May 2016, with the album reaching number 5 in the charts, becoming the first from the band to reach the UK top ten in over a quarter of a century,