David Gray announces summer 2025 Belfast and Killarney shows

David Gray has announced extra dates for his 2025 Past & Present world tour, which will include gigs in Killarney’s Gleneagle INEC Arena on August 27 and Belfast’s Custom House Square on August 30 2025.

The musician will also make stops in Dublin’s 3Arena on April 5 and May 2, for a tour which comes in accompaniment of his upcoming thirteenth album Dear Life, set for release on January 17, 2025.

He launched the record back in September alongside the lead single ‘Plus & Minus’, which includes vocals from emerging artist Talia Rae.

According to Gray, Dear Life is the result of “a starburst of songwriting … it just seemed like the gods of songwriting were being kind. The doubting voices didn't turn up.” It toggles with themes of emotional crisis and resolution, mortality and faith, reality and illusion, love and heartbreak, magic, science, loss and acceptance.

Added shows in Belfast & Killarney

Sign up for the presale & get your tickets to the Past & Present World Tour at the link below.https://t.co/AdoiwxiKKx pic.twitter.com/dVA33TWSap

— David Gray (@DavidGray) November 18, 2024

The foundation of the record were set in 2019, but progress was halted by Covid as well as the subsequent need to twice reschedule his huge White Ladder anniversary tour.

By revisiting those songs, Gray was reminded of the classic songcraft and electronic undercurrent that made them so memorable, yet he was also compelled to broaden his palette, working with producer Ben de Vries to create orchestral strings, horns and woodwind arrangements. A change of location was also a factor, with much of the album recorded and helmed in a makeshift studio in Norfolk.

Speaking of Dear Life, the songsmith comments: “A lot has happened to me. There’s been change on so many levels, all the ups and downs and dramas and tragedies and joys that the slow movement through life brings. This record has been a reckoning with stuff that’s been building up like static for years. But I say this with joy and a smile on my face. I know what I’ve done is as good as anything I could possibly do.”

Tickets for David Gray’s Belfast Custom House Square and Killarney’s Gleneagle INEC Arena go on sale on November 22 here. Find the full list of tour dates here.