Chumbawamba
15th Jun 2012 Big Session Festival
Chumbawamba is an English band. Over a 27-year career, the band plays music ranging from pop-influenced dance music, a cappella/choral music and world music to acoustic folk music.
The band are best known for their song "Tubthumping" (also known as "I Get Knocked Down"), but also for "Enough is Enough" (with MC Fusion), "Timebomb", "Top of the World (Ole, Ole, Ole)", "On eBay", "Jacob's Ladder (Not in my Name)" and, most recently, "Add Me".
They have taken influence from anarchist politics and an irreverent attitude to authority, touching on issues such as domestic violence, religion, racism, fascism, war, homosexuality, information technology, pop culture, resistance, working class rights, and consumerism.
In 2005 Chumbawamba took a hiatus from full-scale touring and recording projects, but a trimmed-down acoustic line-up of Boff Whalley, Lou Watts, Jude Abbott and Neil Ferguson continued to tour the UK and Europe throughout 2005 and 2006. It was this line-up that recorded the album 'A Singsong and a Scrap', released late in 2005 on No Masters records. They followed this up with a second live album, entitled 'Get On With It', recorded during 2006 at various venues throughout Britain.
In 2007, Chumbawamba played at the Glastonbury Festival. In early 2007, the band announced via their website that a new album was in the works, stating that "the new album will be acoustic and probably won't sound like A Singsong and a Scrap".
The result was 'The Boy Bands Have Won', released in 2008. The record contained 25 tracks, some of them full length songs, some of them no more than a minute long and was again acoustic folk in style. The album features Oysterband, Roy Bailey and Barry Coope amongst others.
In late 2009 Chumbawamba toured northern England in their self-penned pantomime, a comedy musical entitled Riot, Rebellion & Bloody Insurrection with the Red Ladder Theater Company.
In late February 2010 they released their 15th album, titled 'ABCDEFG'.
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