The Lathums send a postcard from the innocent, hope-filled child trapped somewhere in grown-ups’ cynical souls with Thoughts Of A Child, their latest single and first new music since claiming their second Official UK Charts Number One album back in March. Savouring every second of another year of success that has served to swell the growing Lathums family, the four-piece’s rousing reminder to submit to wide-eyed wonder arrives as they absorb Europe’s major cities once more, this time on a 26-date arena tour with Louis Tomlinson.
Stamped, addressed and sent back home as a reminder that they’re doing just fine, Thoughts Of A Child has joined the band’s live set as they tour from Helsinki to a late-October finish in Zürich, putting the cherry on top of a year that has also seen them play to 10,000 people at their own headline Castlefield Arena show and steal hearts at Glastonbury with a blistering coming-of-age appearance on The Other Stage.
Blessed with hard-won wisdom and wishing good things on people in the world around him, philosophical singer-songwriter, Alex Moore takes listeners on another hand-held stroll through his glowing world of courage, belief and gentle defiance on Thoughts Of A Child. Swelling, swirling and ebbing from hushed acoustic intimacy to air-punching, arms-around-your-neighbour choruses, the song’s sense and celebration of change – from lost teen to pop star, heartbreak to new love, despair to hope – reconfirms both The Lathums’ untarnished world view and assured artistic confidence.
Moore says of the song: “We’ve all been told before that we, for some reason, aren’t good enough. We don’t look a certain way or our interests are futile and unachievable. Then, one day, something or someone just turns your world the right way up. A partner, friend, a community. Maybe a new job, or is it the sun choosing to shine on you? An angel sent to your underserving hands that just makes everything feel right again with the happiness and purity we feel when we are children. For some reason we lose it along the way. But together we can find it again.”
The Lathums – including Scott Concepcion (guitar/piano), Ryan Durrans (drums) and Matty Murphy (bass) – celebrated joining the club of British bands able to celebrate back-to-back Number One chart successes, putting them in the company of The Beatles, Arctic Monkeys and Blossoms, as their second studio album hit the top spot earlier this year. From Nothing To A Little Bit More followed the phenomenal success of their 2021 debut, How Beautiful Life Can Be, which had catapulted them from pub gigs to festival main stages in a blaze of early, richly-deserved hype.
Invited to pick up a comprehensive wide-tour support by the former One Direction star himself, The Lathums trip overseas in Louis Tomlinson’s company follows last year’s support tour around some of the same continental cities with legendary US indie heroes, The Killers. That tour famously led to Moore joining Brandon Flowers and The Killers on stage to duet their live cover of The Lathums’ How Beautiful Life Can Be.
With no imminent UK dates planned following a year of significant milestones at home, including celebratory indoor dates at London’s Roundhouse and Manchester’s Albert Hall to add to their summer outdoor exploits, all upcoming European live appearances by The Lathums are as follows:
Sun 1 Oct Bilbao Arena Miribilla, Bilbao
Tue 3 Oct Altice Arena, Lisbon
Thu 5 Oct Wizink Centre, Madrid
Fri 6 Oct Palau Sant Jordi, Barcelona
Sun 8 Oct Pala Alpitour, Turin
Mon 9 Oct Unipol Arena, Bologna
Wed 11 Oct Rockhall, Esch-Sur-Alzette
Thu 12 Oct Sportpaleis, Antwerp
Sat 14 Oct Accor Arena, Paris, France
Sun 15 Oct Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam
Mon 17 Oct Lanxess Arena, Cologne
Wed 19 Oct O2 Arena, Prague
Thu 20 Oct Mercedes Benz Arena, Berlin
Sat 22 Oct Olympic Stadium, Munich
Sun 23 Oct Hallen Stadium, Zürich
Sat 2 Dec Paradiso, Amsterdam*
