Orbital announce two appearances in September

The duo of the Hartnoll brothers, better known as dance maestros Orbital are re-forming after their split in 2004, to celebrate 20 years of their pioneering dance music. This reformation gathers momentum with three festival appearances and a brace of live dates.

Orbital have announced they will play Manchester Academy on Saturday 19th September and London's Brixton Academy on Friday 25th September.

After their split both Hartnoll brothers have ventured into new musical territory. But they never closed the door on Orbital, and demand remains high for their fabled live shows. "We've never said never," Paul explains. "It's something I suspected would happen, which is why we kept hold of certain key bits of odd equipment. There have been slight rumblings about getting back together before but it didn't feel good. This time it just felt right."

Headlining a musically adventurous outdoor festivals and big venues makes perfect sense for Orbital, whose magical Glastonbury appearances in the mid 1990s dazzled dance and rock fans alike. Their 1994 Glasto show even earned a Q magazine rating as one of the Top 50 gigs of all time.

Always leaving room for improvisation on stage, unlike many electronic acts, Paul and Phil are world-class experts at building up large crowds into a frenzy of excitement. "Audience reaction is part of the process," Paul explains, "It really becomes like a friendly football match between you and the crowd. That was always one of our strong points - and for people to say that about an electronic band is a real honour, because it's the one genre of music that's normally crap live."

"We've got 15 years of active service, making songs," Paul says. "If you boil that down to a 90-minute festival set you should get something thoroughly good from beginning to end. Let's put some fun back into it."

Tickets for these two shows will go on sale at 9am this Friday, 30th February, and eGigs will have links for you to buy them then.

FUTURE GIGS