10 Tours You Don't Want To Miss This Year

Yesterday, we looked at the biggest albums scheduled for release this year. Today, we’re casting our unerring, steely gaze at the touring action set to take place in the months ahead. Best get a pen and a calendar ready…

**Slipknot **Photo: Daniel Boczarski/Redferns via Getty Images

As wake-up calls go, the prospect of Slipknot, Korn and King 810 ripping through UK and Ireland on the year’s most eagerly anticipated arena tour in January is about as good as it gets. ‘Prepare For Hell’ they say: ‘Prepare For Heavy Metal Heaven’, we say. The whole shebang kicks off in Dublin on January 14.

**Gerard Way **Photo: Gus Stewart/Redferns

For those whose tastes run to more melodic rock, ex-My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way brings his Hesitant Alien tour back to the UK in January, with support from No Devotion: catch the former emo figurehead in Birmingham, Southampton and London on January 20, 21 and 23 respectively.

**Don Broco **Photo: Ollie Millington/Redferns via Getty Images

Pop-punk fans can look forward to Don Broco teaming up with We Are The In Crowd for a twelve-date UK tour in February, with British metallers Bury Tomorrow and Ohio punks Beartooth in support. It kicks off in Alan Partridge’s beloved Norwich on February 6. A-ha!

**Mariachi El Bronx **Photo: Gary Miller/Getty Images

Following their December tour with Gogol Bordello, the wonderful Mariachi El Bronx also return to UK in February, with lovers in London in for a treat when the LA troupe headline the Brooklyn Bowl on Valentine’s Night. February also sees Enter Shikari rampage across the UK in support of the newly released The Mindsweep: good luck getting tickets for that one, as ‘Sold Out’ notices are already being plastered on most dates. The month’s biggest tour, meanwhile, sees pop-punk superstars You Me At Six and **All Time Low **storm into the UK’s most capacious halls: starting at Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena on February 9 and winding up at the 20,000 capacity 02 Arena in London on February 14. Impressive.

**System Of A Down **Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images Entertainment

One of 2014’s more unexpected tours hits the UK for a one-off date at London’s SSE Arena in Wembley in April. The announcement of System Of A Down’s Wake Up The Souls tour in November took the metal world by surprise, and the London date on April 10 is one of just eight shows the LA quartet will be playing. On a more grass-roots level, the While She Sleeps/Cancer Bats co-headline trek the same month is equally unmissable. The following month, Scottish quartet Twin Atlantic line up their biggest UK headline shows to date, beginning with a gig at Manchester’s Albert Hall on May 5. Looking further ahead, the prospect of Alkaline Trio and NOFX teaming up for four UK dates in June and July is equally mouth-watering, but by then, of course, we’re firmly into festival season…

Check back tomorrow for our look at all the festival action you can shake a stick at…

NOFX’s Fat Mike Photo: Daniel Boczarski/Redferns

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.