The Friars in Aylesbury has announced that two of the gigs it had planned for July have had to be moved because of the continuing uncertainty over Covid-19 restrictions.
The first to be postponed was American legends The Flaming Lips which was due to take place on 9th July which has now been moved until May 2022.
The second is OMD who have put back their visit until 17th September 2021. In a message today, Friars told us
“We were all hoping that Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) would be able to play Friars Aylesbury at the Waterside Theatre on 9 July but due to Covid uncertainty and the fact that no band or live event in the UK is able to insure against Covid19, this date has been moved to Friday 17 September 2021.
If you’ve already bought tickets, it would help Friars Aylesbury enormously if you would hang on to them. They will be 100% valid for the 17 September 2021 date.
If you cannot attend on 17 September, please contact the ticket agency where you purchased the tickets. (ATG Tickets, Ticketmaster or See Tickets)
Tickets for the rescheduled date are available now to those who haven’t yet bought tickets.”
“As you know the live music industry has been decimated since March 2020 with 99% of all live events being made impossible due to Covid restrictions. Friars Aylesbury is hoping to survive this but we can only do it with your help. This amazing OMD show will happen, but we’ll all have to wait two months longer.”
OMD are one of the true Friars Aylesbury legends. Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys first played Friars as a duo with a tape recorder, supporting Gary Newman, on 6 October 1979. They went down a storm. A year later they came back to Friars with the full band as triumphant headliners. The gig on 1 November 1980 was a complete sell-out. Years later Andy McCluskey was talking to George Michael who said that he and Andrew Ridgeley had driven over from Watford that night and were in the audience. This was when George and Andrew were a couple of unknown music fans. It would be two years later that they had their first hit with Wham ‘Young Guns (Go For It)’. OMD had released their second album ‘Organisation’ in October 1980, just before the Friars gig and the only single from that album ‘Enola Gay’ was high in the UK singles chart.
OMD have sold over 25 million singles and over 15 million albums. They appeared on Top of The Pops 29 times. They had a string of hits that were the soundtrack to our lives including ‘Electricity’, ‘Messages’, ‘Enola Gay’, ’Souvenir’, ‘Joan of Arc’, ‘Maid of Orleans’, ‘Locomotion’, ‘Genetic Engineering’, ‘(Forever) Live and Die’, ‘Sailing on the Seven Seas’ and ‘Pandora’s Box’. Their albums still have pride of place in so many record collections from the first 1980 album ‘Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’ with its dayglow sleeve and later that same year ‘Organisation’, followed by their 1981 classic ‘Architecture and Morality’ and 1983’s ‘Dazzle Ships’. In 2017 they released ‘The Punishment of Luxury’ which was hailed by fans and critics alike as a return to the shimmering brilliance of their classic early singles.
