British dance duo Everything But the Girl will perform its first live shows in 25 years in London this April.
The duo, made up of husband-and-wife musicians Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt, will perform at east London’s 300-capacity MOTH Club on April 6 and 7. The news was first shared to the pair’s mailing list on Thursday (March 13), and tickets sold out instantly.
Everything But the Girl’s official website has confirmed that the pair will perform as “as a part-acoustic part-electronic duo accompanied by Rex Horan on double bass.” They shared more details on their website, promising, “No club bangers, no huge arena, just a chilled folk-tronic vibe,” and said that they will perform songs from the EBTG catalogue, as well as Thorn and Watt’s solo material. The show will be billed as Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn, the website confirms.
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The pop duo released its most recent album, Fuse, in 2023, and credited the LP with getting them excited about playing live again. “We loved making Fuse together in 2022, and we wanted to do something else,” Watt wrote on the pair’s website. “And that slowly turned into a conversation about playing live again.”
“When we pictured how, we realized we just wanted to play a few songs – including some we’d never done before – in a small club,” added Tracey. “Front room, friends and family vibe. If the shows go well we intend to do more.”
The pair last performed live in 2000 at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.
Everything But the Girl formed in 1982 in Hull, Yorkshire, and has released 11 studio albums. The group was on hiatus for 24 years between 1999’s Temperamental and 2023’s comeback album Fuse; the pair married in 2009.
They’ve had 12 top 40 singles in the U.K., and achieved two top five albums on the Official Albums Chart. Following a remix by Todd Terry in 1995, their single “Missing” was a worldwide hit and spent 55 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 2. “Missing” also hit No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Airplay Charts, and No. 2 on the Billboard Dance Singles Sales. EBTG’s follow-up single “Wrong” (1996) also landed on the Hot 100, topping out at No. 68.
