Beans On Toast serving up tasty folk music on Small Town Celebrations UK Tour

Fancy some Beans On Toast? Not the breakfast variety...but the festival favourite folk singer, who is about to serve up his greatest hits on a UK tour.
Folk singer Beans On Toast on UK tourFolk singer Beans On Toast on UK tour
Folk singer Beans On Toast on UK tour

The Small Town Celebrations will stray from the beaten track to some of the country’s finest small towns, an adventure into the heart of England.

It includes The Black Market in Warsop - between Worksop and Mansfield - on Friday, May 13, and The Trades Club, Hebden Bridge, near Halifax, on Sunday, May 15.

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Beans is used to huge audiences, he's opened Glastonbury every year since 2003 and played to thousands in shows all over Europe, North America and South Africa.

He performed to a crowd of over 100,000 in one week while opening for long time friend and producer, Mr Leeds Reading Festival himself, Frank Turner on his UK stadium tour in 2014.

But now Beans is going all intimate, with his Small Town Celebrations Tour visiting and celebrating 16 of England's finest towns.

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The dates and special activities planned around it are being filmed for a new tour documentary set to premiere at Glastonbury Festival this year.

Beans On Toast Small Town Celebrations UK Tour 2016Beans On Toast Small Town Celebrations UK Tour 2016
Beans On Toast Small Town Celebrations UK Tour 2016

Each show he will be joined by a brilliant new songwriter local to the town from England’s thriving songwriting community.

These songwriters will also be included on a special compilation CD, called Small Town Heroes, which will be available throughout the tour.

Also on the tour will be Sky Smeed, a country singer from Chanute, a small town in Kansas, bringing an international feel to proceedings.

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Around the tour there are plans to celebrate each towns individual identity; from organised pub crawls, to visits to local tourist attractions, to a surfing meet and maybe even a game of rounders down the local park.

Beans On ToastBeans On Toast
Beans On Toast

A true tribute to the UK’s small towns and the people that live in them, the stories collected along the way will go on to not only inspire Beans’ new album in December but the adventures will also be captured for a special documentary, to be screened at this year’s Glastonbury festival.

Beans has been in the game a long time now; singing, travelling and telling it how it is.

With seven albums under his belt and a year round touring schedule that has taken him all over Europe, North America and South Africa. Beans himself is from a small town in Essex, and he hasn’t forgotten where he came from.

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Ten years in the game and Beans on Toast has built up something of an underground following around the world, and is now ramming out festival fields and tents on the UK circuit and constantly touring new and foreign land.

Beans On Toast - real nameJay McAllisterBeans On Toast - real nameJay McAllister
Beans On Toast - real nameJay McAllister

Last year alone he played shows on rooftops in Cape Town, tropical islands in the Barbados, folk festivals in Canada and covered over 10,000 miles in the USA.

He also toured the fringes on the UK in the wake of the result at this year’s election, taking in the mood of the country by visiting Harlow, Preston, Chester and the like. He has, of course, got songs all about these travels. Beans on Toast rounded off 2015 by supporting Frank Turner on a 6 week tour of the USA before run of his own headline UK shows.

He released his seventh studio album in the same amount of years in 2015, via Xtra Mile Recordings. It was recorded in August in Kansas with husband and wife country duo Truckstop Honeymoon.

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Beans met the duo at Larmer Tree festival last year, and after hanging out and playing some shows with them in New Orleans they hatched a plan to go to The Ninth Ward Picking Parlour in Lawrence, Kansas to make an album together.

The duo bring together double bass, mandolin and finger picking sounds to Beans on Toast unique art of songwriting.

Of course though, they were still joined by long-term partner in crime Bobby Banjo, on harp and banjo. Throw in a couple of Kansas players dropping in some horns and some drums and you’ve got a Beans on Toast album that is fresh, fun and exciting whilst at the same time not losing any of Beans on Toast’s original cheap and easy English attitude that has got him to where he is today.

Beans On Toast Small Town Celebrations UK Tour 2016Beans On Toast Small Town Celebrations UK Tour 2016
Beans On Toast Small Town Celebrations UK Tour 2016

As usual Beans on Toast made the album he wanted to make it; no rules, no one to impress, just simple opinionated songs about honest subjects.

Beans On Toast will visit:

10/05 – St Albans, The Horn

11/05 – Milton Keynes, MK11

12/05 – Kings Lynn, Workers Club

13/05 – Warsop, The Black Market

14/05 – Cannock, The Station

15/05 – Hebden Bridge, Trades Club

16/05 – Bolton, The Alma

17/05 – Cheltenham, Frog and Fiddle

18/05 – Swindon, The Victoria

19/05 – Bideford, Palladium Club

20/05 – Newton Abbot, Jolly Farmers

21/05 – Totnes, South Devon Arts Centre

22/05 – Newquay, Whiskers

25/05 – Poole, Mr Kyps

26/05 – Reading, Sub89

27/05 – Southend, Chinnery’s

For more about Beans On Toast visit: