Etran de L’Air
We are thrilled to be welcoming Etran de L’Aïr to Future Yard on 23rd August 2023.
A name that translates to “the Stars of the Aïr,” the mountainous, northern region of their home country of Niger, Etran are based in the town of Agadez, an urban centre renowned for the electric guitar and the Western named “desert blues.” In the Sahara, the electric guitar genre is intertwined with social function, with Etran de L’Aïr standing apart from the crowd, playing in a pan-African style that is emblematic of their hometown, citing a myriad of cultural influences, from Northern Malian blues, Hausa bar bands, to Congolese Soukous. The trio join us this summer in support of their sophomore album, Agadez, recorded at home in the titular city, it’s an LP that invokes the desert metropolis, celebrating the sounds of all the dynamism of a hometown wedding.
Tickets on sale now.
Etran is a family band composed of brothers and cousins, all born and raised in the small neighbourhood of Abalane, just in the shadow of the grand mosque. Sons of nomadic families that settled here in the 1970s fleeing the droughts, they all grew up in Agadez. The band was formed in 1995 when current band leader Moussa “Abindi” Ibra was only 9 years old. “We only had one acoustic guitar,” he explains, “and for percussion, we hit a calabash with a sandal.” Over the decades, the band painstakingly pieced together gear to form their band and built an audience by playing everywhere, for everyone. “It was difficult. We would walk to gigs by foot, lugging all our equipment, carrying a small PA and guitars on our backs, 25 kilometres into the bush, to play for free…there’s nowhere in Agadez we haven’t played.”
Their sound has since developed, yet still is rooted in celebration integral to the town, invokeing the exuberance of an Agadez wedding, with an overwhelming abundance of guitars, as simultaneous solos playfully pass over one another with a restrained precision, forceful yet never overindulgent.
Future Yard presents
Etran de L’Aïr
+ Supports TBA
Wednesday 23rd August 2023
£15 advance – Standing
75 Argyle Street
#thefutureisbirkenhead
Tickets available online in advance or in person at the Future Yard Box Office.
Future Yard is a cashless venue – all payments are taken by contactless or chip and pin. Live curfew 11pm. Kitchen open 4pm-9pm.
If you have any specific access requests, please read all of the details about accessibility at Future Yard here.