The Good the Bad and the Queen Tickets

Short Biography
For the first time since 2008, Damon Albarn, Tony Allen, Paul Simonon and Simon Tong will come together for a show, a special one-off The Good, The Bad and The Queen gig at London's Coronet, New Kent Road on Thursday 10th November, 2011, celebrating 40 years of  Greenpeace and the arrival of the new Rainbow Warrior III in London.

"We've always supported Greenpeace and their amazing work. It should be a great night, we're really looking forward to it." Paul Simonon
John Sauven, Executive Director of Greenpeace added "I can't think of a better way to celebrate our 40th Anniversary than with The Good, the Bad and the Queen. What makes it really special is that this show wi...

Short Biography
For the first time since 2008, Damon Albarn, Tony Allen, Paul Simonon and Simon Tong will come together for a show, a special one-off The Good, The Bad and The Queen gig at London's Coronet, New Kent Road on Thursday 10th November, 2011, celebrating 40 years of  Greenpeace and the arrival of the new Rainbow Warrior III in London.

"We've always supported Greenpeace and their amazing work. It should be a great night, we're really looking forward to it." Paul Simonon
John Sauven, Executive Director of Greenpeace added "I can't think of a better way to celebrate our 40th Anniversary than with The Good, the Bad and the Queen. What makes it really special is that this show will coincide with the arrival of Greenpeace's brand new Rainbow Warrior to its new mooring on the Thames."

The Good The Bad And The Queen debuted with a show at The Roundhouse, London in October 2006, with an eponymous album released by Honest Jon's/Parlophone the following January, which garnered wide spread acclaim and was described by The Times as "..a tear inducing, beautiful record". A string of dates followed, including a farewell show to the Hammersmith Palais and an outdoor performance overlooking the River Thames at the Tower of London.

Greenpeace is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. What began as small group of campaigners sailing into a US nuclear testing sight in 1971 to try and halt nuclear proliferation, has 40 years later expanded into a environmental organisation with over 3 million supporters world wide that is leading the fight against global warming, the exploitation of areas in the Arctic for oil and the destruction of the rainforests in South East Asia and Latin America.

In-depth Biography
"The Good, the Bad & the Queen" refers to all the subjects that live under the London sun, so it's a fitting if awkward moniker for a project -- not a band, as its leader has strenuously asserted -- designed by Blur frontman Damon Albarn as a way to return to writing about England, specifically London, the subject that brought him to fame in the mid-'90s as one of the leading lights of Brit-pop. As he was completing work on Gorillaz's second album, Demon Days, he began working on the Good, the Bad & the Queen, which actually had its roots in an older project. Shortly after the turn of the millennium, he teamed up with Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen after the drummer heard that Albarn name-checked him in the chorus of "Music Is My Radar," the bonus track added to the 2000 comp The Best of Blur. During 2004, Albarn headed to Nigeria with former Verve guitarist Simon Tong to record with Allen and other African musicians, but before the album was completed he turned his attention toward Demon Days.

At the end of those sessions Albarn gave the Nigerian tapes to Gorillaz producer Danger Mouse and the music radically evolved into the Good, the Bad & the Queen, with the idea that this, despite its African origins, would be music about London. Initially, Albarn toyed with the idea that this would be a solo project, but it turned into a full-fledged band -- a band that now needed a bassist. Albarn called up Clash bassist Paul Simonon, who had retired from music over a decade ago to paint. Simonon was convinced to join this project, which now had an irresistible angle: the auteurs behind Parklife and London Calling, two quintessentially London LPs and two bona fide classics, were teaming up to make music about the town again. The resulting music may have had sounded little like either Parklife or London Calling -- it was a moody, languid affair, owing much to the Specials -- but it bore trademarks of all four musicians, from Albarn's ongoing obsession with music hall and pop songwriting to Simonon's loping basslines to Allen's rhythms to Tong's sensitive tonal colorings.

Before they released a record, the Good, the Bad & the Queen first started playing concerts, unveiling their complete album at a series of concerts, culminating with a gig at Camden's Roundhouse just before their debut single, Herculean, hit the shops. This spooky single appropriately surfaced the day before Halloween in 2006, followed by Kingdom of Doom in January 2007. The full-length The Good, the Bad & the Queen appeared that month as well on both sides of the Atlantic, greeted with uniformly positive (sometimes enthusiastic) reviews. Shortly after the album's release, Albarn began to insist in press interviews that this band had no official name, a bit of an odd move considering the numerous articles, written in 2006 as the group was recording, that called the outfit the Good, the Bad & the Queen. The quartet went on tour in the spring of 2007, playing events in New York and the Coachella festival. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi