The Waterboys will play at the Vancouver Folk Festival in Vancouver BC, Canada on Sunday, 21 July. It’s been a while since the band played out west and they are looking greatly forward to it! Other acts at the festival will include Steve Earle and the Dukes, Loudon Wainwright III, DeVotchKa and Natalie Maines of Dixie Chicks fame.

For more information click here

Mike will give a reading at Dalkey Book Festival, Dublin, Ireland on Sunday 16th June. Mike will read from Adventures Of A Waterboy and will also try out some new writing. Tickets are available now here.

Photo: Arnar Eggert

British singer/songwriter Freddie Stevenson will open for The Waterboys on their Fisherman's Blues Revisited tour in December. Freddie is a friend of the band and co-wrote White Birds and Sweet Dancer on An Appointment With Mr Yeats. Said Mike Scott: "Freddie's a good pal and a wonderful songwriter. I'm delighted to get to introduce him to Waterboys fans." You can check out his music here

The Waterboys will play a special show at the Prospect Park Bandshell, Brooklyn, New York, USA on Friday 19th July as part of the Celebrate Brooklyn Performing Arts Festival. This will be a free event with a suggested donation of $3. Showtime is 7.30pm and admission will be open from one hour earlier. For additional information click here

The Waterboys will play a show at Openairtheatre, Rivierenhof, Antwerp, Belgium, on Sunday 25th August. Tickets are available now here. The band last played Rivierenhof almost exactly ten years ago in what was a memorable gig during the Universal Hall tour.

The Waterboys will headline the Pinkpop Classic Festival in Megaland, Landgraaf, Holland on Saturday 24th August. All day tickets, price $35 plus $5 service charge, are available here or by phone from +31 900 300 1250. Other artists include Uriah Heep, Colin Blunstone, CCC Inc & Band Of Friends.

We have uploaded a comprehensive list of all Waterboys members from the band's first recording ("December") in 1981 to the present day. The list has been checked and verified by Mike Scott and includes all individuals who have appeared as a band member on stage or TV/radio. Dates given for each member run from first time playing with the band (recording/audition/rehearsal) to last known performance. View it here.

BBC Radio 4's programe Mastertapes will host a special on The Waterboys and Fisherman's Blues. For broadcast this summer, the show will be pre-recorded at the BBC Studios in Maida Vale, London on Friday 26 April, 6.30pm. It will feature Mike Scott in interview and answering questions from the audience, plus music by Mike and Steve Wickham. Further details, including how to apply for tickets here

Mike will read from Adventures Of A Waterboy at this years Hay Book Festival, Hay-On-Wye, England, at 8.30pm on 31st May, in the Sky Arts Studio. He will be joined by Steve Wickham for an acoustic set. Tickets are available here and from +44 1498 822 629

Mike will be reading at Young Hearts Run Free's charity evening in aid of Dublin's Simon Community, at The James Joyce House, 15 Usher's Island, Dublin 8 on Tuesday April 23rd at 7.30. "City Of Bohane" novelist Kevin Barry and top Irish DJ John Kelly will also be featured. Tickets €15 from youngheartsrunfree@gmail.com

The Waterboys will play at The Schooner Room, Casino Nova Scotia, Halifax on July 17th at 8pm. Tickets here

Mike recently posted on Twitter how much he enjoyed Kristina Train's beautiful version of the Waterboys' song How Long Will I Love You. It can be heard below

The Waterboys will play a series of dates this summer in Canada. These will be regular Waterboys shows featuring the new American line-up. They are

July 2013	Location - Canada
Fri 12	Ottawa Bluesfest- OTTAWA, ONTARIO
Sat 13	Molson Canadian Amphitheatre- TORONTO, ONTARIO – on a bill headed by Great Big Sea. Doors 6:30pm/ showtime 7:30pm
Mon 15	Holy Heart Theatre- ST JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND. Doors 7:30pm/ showtime 8pm
Tue 16	Holy Heart Theatre- ST JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND. Doors 7:30pm/ showtime 8pm

The Waterboys will headline the Cambridge Folk Festival on Sunday, 28th July. This will be their third headline appearance at the festival, having played previously in 2002 and 2007. Information and tickets available from 01223 357851 or online here

Paste Magazine has loaded a video of The Waterboys playing a spellbinding version of Mad Of The Mist And Snow from the An Appointment With Mr Yeats album. The video is a special edit by film-maker Myles O’Reilly and was filmed last September when Waterboys Mike Scott and Steve Wickham reunited with Anto Thistlethwaite for a special show in the Spiddal, Ireland. You can view it here

Mike has been interviewed online by Magnet Magazine, and has also contributed 14 short "guest editor" articles which will be posted, 2 a day, between now and Sunday 31st March. The pieces are on a variety of subjects - favourite music, books, Dublin buskers - and are as im passioned and humorous as you'd expect. Access them here, and check in daily for the additions

In October it will be 25 years since the release of Fisherman's Blues. To celebrate, on 14th October EMI Records will release a 7-CD set titled FISHERMAN'S BOX, containing 121 tracks from the album sessions including all those on the original record and previous editions plus an incredible 85 unreleased tracks. The contents have been selected and annotated by Mike Scott, with sleevenotes by Decemberists' singer and long-time Fisherman's Blues aficionado, Colin Meloy. We'll be announcing the tracklists of the 7 CDs throughout spring & summer.

As a further celebration, The Waterboys will play a special tour of Britain and Ireland this December titled FISHERMAN'S BLUES REVISITED, reuniting Mike and Steve with Fisherman's-era members Anto Thistlethwaite and Trevor Hutchinson. The famous four will be joined by drummer Ralph Salmins and the shows will be a re-exploration of the Fisherman's Blues period. Says Mike: "We won't play the original album in order or anything tame like that. That's not the Waterboys' style. Instead we'll be roaming our old repertoire in a new expression of the freewheeling, improvised spirit of The Waterboys in those days. We want to get that old fire burning again, and I wanna hear Steve and Anto wailing like the two-man orchestra we all remember."

Tickets for the 13 shows go on sale this FRIDAY 22nd MARCH at 9am. Dates as follows:

Dec 2013	Location	Buy
Sun 8	LIVERPOOL Philharmonic £34.50, £28.50, £25 0151 709 3789
Mon 9	GLASGOW Royal Concert Hall £27.50 / £25 0141 353 8000
Tues 10	GLASGOW Barrowland £27.50 0844 844 0444
Wed 11	YORK Barbican £28.50, £26.50 0844 854 2757 / 0844 338 0000
Thurs 12	BIRMINGHAM Alexandra £29.50, £27.50 0844 871 3011 / 0844 338 0000
Sun 15	OXFORD New Theatre £29.50, £27.50 0844 871 3020 / 0844 338 0000
Mon 16	GUILDFORD GLive £28.50 0844 770 1797 / 0844 338 0000
Tues 17	BRISTOL Colston Hall £28.50, £26.50 0117 922 3686 / 0844 338 0000
Wed 18	HAMMERSMITH Apollo £35.00, £29.50 0844 249 1000 / 0844 338 0000
Fri 20	DROGHEDA TLT €44.50 +353 41 987 8560
Sat 21	KILLARNEY INEC €35 +353 6466 71555
Sun 22	GALWAY Leisureland €44.50 +353 91 586 540
Mon 23	DUBLIN Convention Centre €44.50

The Waterboys' album An Appointment With Mr Yeats will be released in the United States on Tuesday 26th March by Proper America. To coincide with the album's release Mike and Steve will also be playing various sessions and short concerts on US radio stations. We will post details of these during the coming weeks. The album will be launched with the previously announced special show of An Appointment With Mr Yeats at New York's famous Town Hall on Wednesday 20th March, featuring the new American line-up of The Waterboys. Tickets available here.

For the March 20 show of AN APPOINTMENT WITH MR YEATS in New York, Mike & Steve will be joined by an all-new American Waterboys. Said Mike: "Touring America with a British/Irish band is tough financially and in the past has meant less shows, so I took the decision to assemble a new band for North America. The British/Irish band, with Ralph, James, Archie & Mel, will continue to play round the world, but on the American continent it'll be the new group, which I'm proud to say is fantastic. I hand-picked the players myself, most of whom I spotted playing in New York and was blown away by".

The new musicians are: Elizabeth Ziman (vocals, from the band Elizabeth And The Catapult), Jay Barclay (guitar), Daniel Mintseris (keyboards, a member of St Vincent), Malcolm Gold (bass), Ezra Oklan (drums) and Chris Layer (flute).

New York Town Hall will be the debut of the American version of The Waterboys. For tickets go here

Waterboys Mike Scott and Steve Wickham will appear at the Prince Tribute Concert at Carnegie Hall, during which a starpacked line-up of artists perform the songs of Prince, in New York City, Thurs 7 March. The show is part of an annual series benefiting educational music programs for children in need. Previous shows have paid tribute to The Who, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan among others. Other artists appearing this year include Elvis Costello, Bettye LaVette, Booker T. Jones, Amos Lee and Devotchka. Informationand tickets are availa ble here. VIP packages available here

Mike Scott will be reading from his musical memoir `Adventures Of A Waterboy' at this year's South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas on Wed 13 March. The reading will take place at St. David's Sanctuary beginning at 7:30pm, following which Mike will be joined by Steve Wickham for a short acoustic set.

This event is open to SXSW badge and wristband holders. A limited amount of general tickets may be available at the door only. For further information on the festival including how to register to attend visit here

While enjoying the first ever Waterboys tour in Australia Mike was able to sit down with national radio ABC's ‘Rhythm Divine’ presenter Geoff Wood for a candid conversation about music and spirituality. You can hear the interview along with some favourite Waterboys tunes by clicking the ‘Listen now’ link at top left here

Mike Scott will give a reading from his book Adventures Of A Waterboy at Readings Bookstore, 309 Lygon Street, Melbourne, Australia at 6pm on Tuesday 15th January. Amazingly, this will be Mike's first-ever public appearance in Australia, and comes 4 days before the Waterboys tour of Australia and New Zealand begins in Brisbane. Further info on the reading here

Further info on the tour here

Photo: Gavin Kelly

2012 was a great year for The Waterboys. We've collected 100 photographs in a special gallery celebrating its events; the band tours, festivals, Mike's book launch and readings, and lots more.

View it here

The Waterboys will headline the splendidly-named Wickham Festival, Hampshire, England on Friday 2nd August 2013. Tickets are on sale now here, or by phone from (+44) 23 8071 1818, priced £50 for the full day, £30 for the evening only. Other artists appearing on the same evening as The Waterboys are Lau and Shooglenifty. Seth Lakeman and Rolf Harris will appear on other days. For full details click here

Photo: Paul Mac Manus

The Waterboys will play at Canberra Theatre on Friday 25th January as part of their tour of Australian and New Zealand. Tickets are available now here

Mike Scott and Steve Wickham played a set of songs for a class of 14 year-old students at St. Aidan’s School in Dublin. Teacher Laura O’Flanagan had been using songs from “An Appointment With Mr Yeats” to teach her second year English class the poetry of W.B. Yeats and sent Mike a letter to tell him how much the class loved it. Mike responded by visiting the school with Steve and their instruments, and the Irish television news cameras were there to capture what happened. View the footage here

The Waterboys will play their first ever show in New Zealand on Monday 21 January at Civic Theatre, Auckland. Tickets for this show, as well as the shows that will be taking place in Australia are on sale NOW here

In addition to the previously announced “An Appointment With Mr Yeats” show at the Sydney Festival on 23 Jan, we are pleased to announce the following shows for The Waterboys first ever tour of Australia. Tickets are on sale NOW. These will be regular Waterboys shows. They are:

Sat, 19 Jan, The Tivoli, BRISBANE- tickets available online here

Sat, 26 Jan, Opera House, SYDNEY - tickets available online here

Wed, 30 Jan, Hamer Hall, MELBOURNE- tickets available online here

Thurs, 31 Jan, The Barton Theatre, ADELAIDE- tickets available online here

Sat, 2 Feb, Concert Hall, PERTH- tickets available online here

An additional show in AUCKLAND New Zealand will be announced shortly.

Rock Book Show caught up with Mike recently in New York for a lively discussion on Mike’s music memoir “Adventures Of A Waterboy”. You can view the interview here

We are pleased to announce that the critically acclaimed Waterboys show "AN APPOINTMENT WITH MR YEATS" will be performed in NEW YORK CITY at TOWN HALL (123 West 43rd Street) on Wednesday 20th March, 2013- doors at 7:30pm, show at 8pm.

This will be the ONLY performance of Mr Yeats in North America and is sure to be a very unique and special event.

Tickets are on sale now here

A full North American tour in the fall of 2013 will follow.

Mike Scott sang the Waterboys song She Tried To Hold Me recently at a party of friends in New York, and the wonderful footage, filmed by Mary Ellen Matthews, can be viewed here. Musicians playing include James Maddock, Dave Immergluck (Counting Crows), Freddie Stevenson, Irakli Gaprandashvili and Mark Bosch (Ian Hunter's Rant Band)

Five new audio pieces have been uploaded to Mike's soundcloud page. They comprise three short mash-ups entitled SWEET FIGHTING DUDE, GLAM GROOVE and BRIGHT AND SHINING MASH PHASE; a spontaneous song titled WAITIN' FOR RALPH, in honour of Waterboys' drummer Ralph Salmins, recorded during a soundcheck on the recent tour; and Mike's demonstration, from a radio show, of how the piano style of THE WHOLE OF THE MOON was created. All five tracks, plus many more, can be accessed here

The Waterboys will make their first-ever visit to Australia and New Zealand in January. The first date to be announced is a performance of An Appointment With Mr Yeats at The State Theatre, Sydney on Wednesday 23rd January as part of the Sydney Festival. Tickets go on sale today, Monday 29th Oct, online from Sydney Festival or from Ticketmaster and by phone hotline (+61) 1300 723 038. The show will be part of a ten-date tour of Australia and New Zealand. All the other concerts will be regular Waterboys shows and dates will be announced shortly.

When Mike, Steve and Anto played for the Strange Boat charity in Spiddal last month, film-maker Myles O'Reilly of Arbutus Yarns was there. To see his beautiful 11-minute documentary click here

Mike Scott will read from his book Adventures Of A Waterboy at Brighton Music Hall, Boston, MA on 18th November. He will also be joined by Steve Wickham for an acoustic set. Showtime is 8pm and tickets are available NOW here

Mike will read from Adventures Of A Waterboys and play an acoustic set with Steve Wickham at the third annual Rolling Sun literary festival, Westport, Co Mayo, Ireland on Friday 9th November. Tickets are on sale NOW and are available only from the festival's telphone hotline (+353) 98 28088. For further info on the festival click here

Mike will read from Adventures Of A Waterboy at the following added venues in the USA. At each reading Mike will be joined for an acoustic set by Steve Wickham.

Mike and Steve will also play a short 3-song set at John Wesley Harding's multi-artist extravaganze, The Cabinet Of Wonders, on Friday 16 Nov at City Winery, NEW YORK. Also on the bill are Steve Earle and Loudon Wainright III. Tickets NOW from (+1) 212 608 0555 and online here

Photo: Steve Wickham

Mike will give a reading from Adventures Of A Waterboy, followed by a two-man musical set with Steve Wickham, at Purcell Room on London's Southbank on Wednesday 7 November. Tickets, priced £15.50, go on general sale on Wednesday 19th Sept from here. However, subscribers to the Waterboys' email updates can purchase tickets on Tuesday 18th Sept from this address (Please note: presale tickets cannot be purchased by calling the box office, they are available through this link only).

Mike Scott will give readings from Adventures Of A Waterboy in Penzance and Glastonbury, England on October 15 & 16. Following each reading Mike and Steve Wickham will perform an acoustic set. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and Mike will sign copies after each show.

Mon 15 Oct: PENZANCE, The Acorn, Tickets price: £12.50 available NOW from 01736 330201 or online here

Tues 16 Oct: GLASTONBURY The Assembly Rooms, Tickets price: £12.50 available NOW from 01736 330201 or online here

Mike will give readings from Adventures Of A Waterboy at the following venues. He will be accompanied by Steve Wickham and each reading will be followed by an acoustic set by the pair. Copies of the book will be on sale and Mike will sign copies after the show.

Tues 9 Oct: LIVERPOOL Epstein Theatre, Tickets price £12.50 available NOW from +44 151 709 3789 or online here

Mon 29 Oct: ISLE OF MAN, Villa Marina Arcade, 3 Legs Festival. Tickets price £18 available NOW from +44 1624 600555 or online here

The paperback edition of Adventures Of A Waterboy was published yesterday in the UK by Jawbone Press. Copies are available from bookshops, and by mail order from our own online store for £14.95 here. The Kindle version (only for UK) is available here

Mike will read from Adventures Of A Waterboy at Birmingham Town Hall on Wednesday 17th October. The reading will be followed by a short acoustic set by Mike and Steve. Tickets priced £15 are on sale NOW from +44 121 780 3333 and online here

Mike was interviewed by Jeni Barnett for her Radio London show. This will be broadcast on Sunday 19th August at 11.30am, after the news, and can be streamed here - link on right-hand side of the page.

Mike joined a gang of young trad players on Grafton Street, Dublin last week. A clip has already been uploaded on Twitter but the full video is here

You can hear Mike's interview with Cathal Murray, during which he chose 8 favourite soul records, here
Mike' section starts shortly before the Marvellettes track.

As tickets for the Mike, Steve & Anto reunion charity show in Spiddal have sold so quickly, and because there have been so many requests for tickets, a second show has been added. This will be a matinee performance, with doors at 4pm. Tickets are available from this morning, Wednesday 8th August from here. To give all fans a fair chance to attend these shows, we ask that people who already have tickets for the evening concert don't buy tickets for the early one.

Mike will give readings from Adventures Of A Waterboy, with an additional short music set with Steve Wickham on the following dates:

Wed 10 October: The Sage, GATESHEAD. Tickets on sale this Friday at 10am from +44 191 443 4661 and online here

Sat 13 October: Haymarket Theatre, BASINGSTOKE. Tickets on sale now from +44 1256 844244 and online here

Mike's entertaining interview earlier this week with Mark Radcliffe, on BBC 6's Radcliffe & Maconie show, can be accessed here. The interview begins approx 95 minutes into the show, just after the Bloc Party number.

Two more UK appearances have been added to Mike’s calendar of readings from his memoir, Adventures Of A Waterboy. They are:

Thursday, 23rd August at St. Cecilia’s Hall in EDINBURGH, Scotland. Tickets £12 + booking fee from +44 844 844 0444 or here

Sunday, 14th October at Subscription Rooms, George Street, STROUD, Gloucestershire, UK at 8pm, doors 7.30pm. Tickets £10 + booking fee from +44 1453 760 900 or here

Mike Scott, Steve Wickham and Anto Thistlethwaite will reunite for a one-off 3-man show, titled STRANGE BOAT 2012, in the Waterboys' spiritual home of SPIDDAL, County Galway, Ireland, on Tuesday 25th September. This is the first time The Waterboys have ever played a formal concert in Spiddal. The show will be at Park Lodge Hotel at 7.30pm, and is a benefit for The Circle Of Life project building a commemorative garden in Galway in memory of organ donors. Also on the bill are Alec Finn and Charlie Lennon, both veterans of the Fisherman's Blues sessions, and De Dannan singer Eleanor Shanley, who covered Strange Boat in 2008. Tickets for this unique and very special event are €25 and available here

The following evening, Wednesday 26th September, fifty miles up the Connemara coast, Mike will give a reading from Adventures Of A Waterboy at the Station House Theatre, CLIFDEN, Co Galway as part of CLIFDEN ARTS WEEK. Mike will be accompanied for a short musical set by Steve Wickham. Tickets are available here or by phone from +353 91 442 730. This will be Mike's first visit to Clifden's annual festival since he turned up unannounced a quarter of a century ago and played an impromptu gig at the local school, an occasion immortalised in this familiar video.

Mike Scott, Steve Wickham and Waterboys' pedal steel player Mel Duffy will perform several songs at Dave Stewart's multi-artist concert "Music That Changes The World" on Tuesday 24 July (tomorrow) as part of Walk A Mile, a series of global events promoting tolerance and peace launched to coincide with the London Olympics. The concert will be held at Dave Stewart's venue The Hospital, in London, before an invited audience, and will stream live here starting at 8.30pm. Other artists participating include KT Tunstall, Moby and Daryll Hall.

Mike Scott will mark the UK launch of his book Adventures Of A Waterboy at Boogaloo, 312 Archway Road, N6, on Monday August 27th at 8pm. Mike will read from the book and be interviewed by music journalist Gavin Martin. Tickets, price £6, are available now here

Mike Scott will give readings from Adventures Of A Waterboy in the Irish cities of Kilkenny and Cork on the 15th and 16th of August. On each occasion the format will be readings from the book interspersed with interview, followed by a short musical set by Mike and Steve Wickham. Dates are:

Wed 15 Aug Kilkenny Arts Festival, The Ormonde Hotel, KILKENNY at 7.30pm. Interview by journalist and author Peter Murphy. Tickets priced €16 or €14 available from +353 567 752 175 or here

Thurs 16 Aug The Pavilion, Carey's Lane, CORK at 8pm. Interview by broadcaster Mick Mulcahy. Tickets priced €12 available here

To coincide with the UK publication in August of his memoir Adventures Of A Waterboy, Mike will give a reading from the book at Oran Mor, Glasgow, at 8pm, Friday 24th August. The evening will also include a short set of songs played by Mike and Steve Wickham. Tickets are on sale now from +44 844 844 04444 or online here

Mike Scott and Steve Wickham will be interviewed on Miriam Meets, broadcast on RTE1, Sunday at 10am (repeated Monday 4am). They will be talking for an hour to presenter Miriam O'Callaghan about their friendship and work together, and playing a selection of acoustic songs, including Savage Earth Heart and Saint & Angels. Stream it live here

Mike was filmed reading an extract from Adventures Of A Waterboy while visiting Kenny's Bookshop in Galway, Ireland, last week. View the clip here.

The Waterboys will play at the Jazzaldia Festival in San Sebastian, Spain, on Saturday 21st July. Tickets are free. Further info here

During a soundcheck on their recent UK tour, The Waterboys jammed a ten-minute version of George Harrison's venerable song Isn't It A Pity. Hear it here

The Waterboys will be joined by The Unthanks and Katie Kim at their open air show in Dublin, 20th July, at the Iveagh Gardens. Tickets can be purchased here

The Waterboys will play at Rock En Seine, Paris, France, on Sunday 26 August, appearing in late afternoon, probably around 4pm. Day tickets, price €49 or weekend (3 day) tickets price €109 are available here

Photo: Paul Mac Manus

The Waterboys will play Dranouter Festival Of New Traditions in Belgium on Sunday 5th August. The band last played this festival in 2001. Tickets are available from +32 7025 2020 or online here. Further information here

The band were filmed playing two acoustic songs by Reno Cargo when they visited Paris in May.

Mike will give a reading from his newly-published book Adventures Of A Waterboy at Belfast Book Festival on Monday 18th June at 8pm. The event will be held at Crescent Arts Centre, University Rd, Belfast BT7 1NH. Tickets priced £8 and £6 are available here.

Signed copies of Adventures Of A Waterboy can be purchased online here.

Mike Scott's long awaited musical memoir, Adventures Of A Waterboy, is published in a beautiful hardback edition by Lilliput Press of Dublin on 6th June. Paperback publication, through UK publisher Jawbone Press, will follow in August. Adventures Of A Waterboy was written between 2008 and 2010 and runs to 272 pages. It's an eye-opening account of Mike's life in music; serious, funny, profound, whimsical and enigmatic, with blow-by-blow descriptions of his days in teenage garage bands, the rise of The Waterboys, his exploits with Steve Wickham and the rest of the gang in the west of Ireland, and much, much more. Read an extract here. Adventures Of A Waterboy can be purchased online here.

To tie in with publication Mike will be giving a series of readings from the book around Ireland on the following dates:

Thurs 7 June: Dublin Writers Festival, Liberty Hall, Dublin, 8.30pm. Tickets €12 and €10 here Mike will be hosted by music journalist and former teenage Waterboys fanatic Jim Carroll. Steve Wickham will also guest.

Sun 10 June: Borris House Hay festival, Eigse, Carlow, 7.15pm. Tickets €9 here.

Wed 13 June: Roisin Dubh, Galway, 8.30pm. Tickets €10 here Mike will be hosted by Sawdoctors' guitarist Leo Moran. Steve Wickham will also guest.

The last remaining copies of The Waterboys limited edition 7” Politics single are now available online here. The single features two previously unreleased songs on the flip side: The Travelling Man And The Tree and Down By The Salley Gardens, both with lyrics by W.B. Yeats.

The Waterboys will play an open-air show at Dublin's magical Iveagh Gardens on Friday 20th July as part of a three day series also featuring Lisa Hannigan and Rufus Wainright. Tickets are available now here. Two special guest acts will be on the bill and as soon as we have confirmed details we'll announce them.

Photo: Dave Thomas

The Waterboys will headline Solfest Festival, Cumbria, England, on Saturday 25th August. The festival runs from 24th to 26th Aug with tickets available now from +44 1900 602122. Information and tickets online here, price £95 (weekend), £65 (child), £25 (5-11). Other acts include Saint Jude, the great rock and soul band who supported on the 2007 Waterboys tour, Louis Barabbas, Tarras and Fiona Clayton.

Cloud of Sound, the exclusive 15-track album available only at Waterboys shows and the band's website is back in stock at our online store. Reasons for the delay is that Mike Scott has been slow to sign copies. When pressed for an explanation, the Scottish singer said "Have you ever tried signing 5000 CDs?" and immediately wept with pain while holding his right hand in a bucket of ice. The album is available now here. In between signing sessions on the current tour, Mike had just enough wrist-power left to write a short track-by-track description for the website, which you can read here.

The Waterboys release Politics, from An Appointment With Mr Yeats, as a special 7" single to mark Record Store Day on 21st April. The single, in a limited edition of only 1,000 copies, features two previously unreleased songs on the flip side: The Travelling Man And The Tree and Down By The Salley Gardens, both with lyrics by W.B. Yeats. It will be available from partipating record shops only, details available here.

The Waterboys will play Cornbury Festival, Great Tew Park, OXFORDSHIRE, UK on Fri 29 June. Other acts include Elvis Costello,Macy Gray, Nerina Pallot and many more. Tickets, price £65 adult day, £150 adult weekend, £170 adult weekend with camping, on sale NOW from 0844 338 0000 or online here

The Waterboys will appear at Bospop Festival, Weert, HOLLAND on Sun 8 July. Other performers include Patti Smith, Chris Cornell and Alanis Morrisette. Tickets, price €75 (day ticket) and €130 (weekend ticket), on sale NOW here

An exclusive Waterboys CD called CLOUD OF SOUND, and containing 15 fabulous tracks never before gathered on an album, will be available at venues on the Appointment With The Waterboys tour, starting at the first show, March 7, in Sandnes, in a limited edition of 5000 copies signed by Mike Scott. The CD will also be available online here while supplies last.

Many of the tracks are from Mike's Soundcloud page and several have never been heard before. None of the song versions included have ever appeared on a CD or album until now.

The track list is as follows:

Winter Blows (2012 mix)
The Girl In The Swing (live)
Siochain Iona
Killing My Heart (live)
Barbara Allen
Vigilante
The Serpent’s Head
The Seven Woods
Silent Fellowship (2012 mix)
Straight With The Medicine
The Passing Of The Shee
Mr Wickham Composes (live)
Seek The Light (extended)
Vampire’s Head
Savage Earth Heart (live)

The Waterboys will appear at The Beautiful Days Festival, Escot Park, DEVON, UK on Sun 19 August. Other acts include Public Image Limited, Frank Turner and Richard Thompson & The Sleeping Souls, The Levellers, New Model Army and many more. Tickets on sale NOW from 0871 220 0260 or online here

For further information visit here

Two more Waterboys shows have been added this spring and summer. They are:

'An Appointment With The Waterboys', Mon 14 May, St David’s Hall CARDIFF, Wales. Tickets priced £28.50 are on sale NOW from +44 2920 878444 or online here

The Westport Festival of Music and Performing Arts, Sat 23 June, Westport House, WESTPORT, Co Mayo, Ireland. Tickets are €75 for Saturday or €130 for the weekend, on sale NOW from +353 1 4038413 or online here

The Waterboys will tour Spain in April. Tickets are on sale now. There will be no support act, so come early. These shows will be played by the 5-piece line-up of the band, featuring Mike Scott, Steve Wickham, James Hallawell, Marc Arciero and Ralph Salmins. Dates are as follows:

Two more shows have been added to the 'An Appointment With The Waterboys' tour. They are:

Wed 16 May St Alban Arena, ST ALBANS. Tickets on sale now from: 01727 844488 or online here

Fri 18 May The Forum, BATH. Tickets on sale now from: 01225 463 362 or online here

The 'An Appointment With The Waterboys' show will visit Paris Thursday, 24 May at Bataclan. This will be the first full Waterboys show in Paris since 2004. Tickets are priced at € 32 and on sale now. Available from:
fnac, ticketnet and digitick.

Three more UK shows have been added to the Appointment With The Waterboys tour. They are:

Sun 20 May BOURNEMOUTH Pavilion
Mon 21 May GUILDFORD G Live
Tue 22 May BIRMINGHAM Symphony Hall

Tickets, price £28.50 and £25.00 are available exclusively to Waterboys fans from 9am today Thursday 2 Feb here

From Saturday 4 Feb, tickets will be on general sale from 0844 338 0000 (24-hour) and online here

The Waterboys will headline FESTIVAL DU BOUT DU MONDE in Crozon, Brittany, France on Saturday 4th August. Other acts include Jimmy Cliff, Flavia Coelho and roots artists from around the world. Tickets price €28 are available now here

In the last week films of several vintage Waterboys concerts have appeared on youtube. These include the classic Glastonbury 1986 show, well-known to fans via bootleg records and the Live Adventures album; Rock Am Ring, a high quality TV broadcast from the same year; and a 17-minute Savage Earth Heart medley from Manchester 1989.

Mike has recently posted the following on his soundcloud page

COR CHUIL AODHA BACKWARDS: a psychedelic mash-up of Irish choral music

MEET ME AT THE STATION: the 1929 original by Brother Williams Memphis Sanctified Singers of this great song, memorably covered by The Waterboys in the Fisherman's Blues era.

BOTHY BAND BOTH WAYS: another mischievous mash up of Irish trad music

The Waterboys will play at this year's Hebridean Celtic Festival, Saturday 14th July, in the grounds of Lewis Castle, Stornoway, Isle Of Lewis, Scotland. This is the band's first appearance at the Hebcelt festival since 2003, when their headlining appearance was the biggest-ever gig in Scotland's western isles. The festival runs from 11th to 14th July and weekend tickets, price £70 or £55 with concessions (+ under 14s free), go on sale Thursday 19th Jan here or by phone from (44) 1851 621234. Saturday-only tickets will go on sale once the full line-up has been announced. Check www.hebcelt.com for details.

Mike has guested on the song The Blue Cockade on Australian singer Sarah Calderwood's new album As Night Falls. The song is traditional and tells the story of a young couple separated when the boy falls in with soldiers and enlists in the army. The album can be ordered online here and a preview of the track is available on Mike's soundcloud page.

We've uploaded a couple of rarities to Mike Scott's soundcloud page. The Man Who Sold The World is a 1982 version of the David Bowie song by Mike's pre-Waterboys band The Red And The Black. Vigilante is a new mix of a recording from 2009 featuring Mike and Steve Wickham.

Two Dutch shows have been to the APPOINTMENT WITH THE WATERBOYS tour as follows:

12 March 2012 Ooosterport, GRONINGEN seated show. Buy tickets here.
17 March 2012 Vredenburg, UTRECHT standing show. Buy tickets here

Tickets for both shows go on sale Friday 9th December at 10am local time (9am GMT).

The rest of the Waterboys' spring 2012 UK tour schedule will go on sale this Thursday morning, Oct 27 at 10am. 9 English shows have been added to the 5 Scottish dates already on sale, and the dates and box office numbers are as follows:

Tickets can also be booked using the central 24 hour ticket hotline, 0844 338 0000 or online here Further European shows will be announced soon.

The Waterboys will perform on Later Live With Jools Holland on BBC2 tonight, Tues 25 Oct at 10pm, and on Later With Jools Holland, BBC2, Fri 28 Oct at 11.50pm. Different songs will be played on the two nights, so don't miss either broadcast! After transmission the shows will be archived here and here

Mike is interviewed on tonight's (Tuesday 18 October) episode of Scotland's Greatest Album on STV. The show will be transmitted at 9pm and this week features classic Scottish records of the 1990s, including The Whole Of The Moon which, though recorded in 1985, was a hit in 1991. For those of you outside Scotland, the show will be archived here Listeners can vote for their favourite 3 songs from each decade to be included on STV's imaginary "Scotland's Greatest Album", so if you think The Whole Of The Moon belongs there, vote here after the show. Mike reckons "it won't really be Scotland's greatest album, because the song selection is too arbitrary, but it's a good piece of fun that will get people talking for a few weeks and focussing on some of the great music Scotland's produced."

Continuing with the Edinburgh theme, author Ian Rankin, creator of the Inspector Rebus series of best-selling crime novels, has compiled a playlist of Edinburgh songs for The Guardian. He included The Whole Of The Moon.

Irish national station RTE1 will broadcast an hour-long special on the Waterboys' new album An Appointment With Mr Yeats from 12-1pm today, Friday 14 October. The special, hosted by Ronan Collins, features special acoustic performances of several songs plus an interview with Mike, Steve and Katie Kim. It will be streamed live here (click on "Radio 1") and archived here.

The Waterboys will tour Europe in the spring of 2012 and the first show to be announced has just gone on sale. It is at Dublin's Grand Canal Theatre on Sunday 1st April 2012 and tickets, price £45.50, are available now here. More shows will be announced as soon as we have details.

Mike Scott was interviewed about An Appointment With Mr Yeats on Scottish Televison's 6 o'clock News yesterday. View the clip here

To view the full length non-broadcast version of the interview click here

The new Waterboys album An Appointment With Mr Yeats has been receiving a lot of excellent reviews, and we've posted a couple of our favourites on the band's website. To read click here

Mojo have done a major retrospective feature on The Waterboys in this month's issue. Mike was interviewed by top writer and long-time Waterboys fan James McNair.

Mike Scott will be reading from his forthcoming book KISS THE WIND: A WATERBOY'S ADVENTURES IN MUSIC at Thea Gilmore's Nantwich Words And Music Festival, near Manchester, England. The event is at 7.30pm on Friday 7 October at Crown Ballroom, Nantwich. Tickets, priced £15, are available now from (44) 1270 610751 or online here. Mike's previous reading at Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast in April was a great success, and the Nantwich event is likely to be the only other opportunity to get a flavour of Mike's book in advance of its publication in early 2012.

The Waterboys will play a short free concert at Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin, Ireland at 6pm on Friday 30th September. The band will play songs from An Appointment With Mr Yeats with a six piece band including Mike, Steve, James, Archie and Katie Kim, and will sign copies of An Appointment With Mr Yeats and other Waterboys albums.

Neil McCormick interviewed Mike Scott about An Appointment With Mr Yeats in yesterday's Daily Telegraph newspaper

An Appointment With Mr Yeats is released today. If you haven't already bought or ordered your copy, you can order from Amazon or download from iTunes or pick up a copy at your local record shop. The album is available in both CD and 45rpm double vinyl versions. The album was CD of the week in yesterday's Sunday Times.

An updated version of the Waterboys' Let The Earth Bear Witness video, featuring the new recording of the song from An Appointment With Mr Yeats is now available on youtube

British newspaper The Guardian will stream a special preview of the entire new Waterboys album An Appointment With Mr Yeats this Friday, 16th September. The stream will go live early in the morning and Mike Scott will be online between 3-4pm GMT responding to comments on the streaming page. Access via The Guardian's homepage.

With next Monday's release of An Appointment With Mr Yeats fast approaching, Mike Scott and some members of the band will appear in the UK media this week on the following programmes:

We all enjoyed Richard Curtis article about The Waterboys in last Wednesday's Guardian. If you missed it, read it here and be sure to scroll down for the countless wonderful comments from Waterpeople all over the world.

Richard Curtis, director of the movies Four Weddings And A Funeral, Notting Hill & Love Actually, has contributed an article on his love for The Waterboys to today's Guardian newspaper. It's a lovely piece of writing, full of affection for Waterboys' music, and Mike Scott has already tweeted how much he enjoyed reading it, though he expressed some mystification at the article's mention of his having made "two bluegrass albums last year"! Yes, we're mystified by that too.

Track 10 of An Appointment With Mr Yeats, the epic September 1913, has been uploaded to the band's soundcloud page.

Photo: Paul Mac Manus

An additional bonus track, Love Song, will be available with the album at Amazon.co.uk from 19 September, both as an individual track and part of the album.

The Waterboys' first single from An Appointment With Mr Yeats, Sweet Dancer, has started to receive radio play. It has been heard already on Radio 2, Radio 3, 6 Music, XFM, Clyde, Radio Scotland and BBC Northern Ireland. And we're delighted to announce that the single is available for download NOW from iTunes Europe. Click here.

We've uploaded a short video of the band performing the mighty September 1913 from An Appointment With Mr Yeats. The film was shot at Dublin's Abbey Theatre last year, and is intercut with Mike Scott interview extracts. To view click here

Our friends at Townsend Records have a supply of the new Waterboys album, AN APPOINTMENT WITH MR YEATS, on both CD and double vinyl with a special limited edition manuscript page, each copy individually signed by Mike and Steve. The manuscript shows the violin part from the album's opening track The Hosting Of The Shee, rendered in the Wickham hand, is printed on 135 gsm matt art paper, and only available with copies of the album sold by Townsend. This is available now for pre-order (delivery at Sept 19 release date). Cost is £9.99 (CD) and £15.99 (double vinyl). Click here to pre-order CD, and here for vinyl.

Track 6, WHITE BIRDS, from An Appointment With Mr Yeats is now available for advance listening on the band's soundcloud page. The track is a modern successor to the classic widescreen early Waterboys sound. Mike describes it as 'the pure big music', and we think you'll agree it is momentous!

The Waterboys have contributed In The Beginning Was Love, co-written by Mike Scott and spiritual author David Spangler, to ‘DOWNLOAD FOR GOOD - Music That Changes The World’, an online charity music label which benefits the David Lynch Foundation's work providing meditation instruction to schoolchildren, military personnel, jail populations and at-risk communities.

You can buy and download In The Beginning Was Love here

Other artists donating tracks include Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Peter Gabriel, Ben Folds, Moby, Alanis Morrisette, The Charlatans and many more. Further info here

For more info about the David Lynch Foundation and its work click here

The long-awaited new Waterboys album AN APPOINTMENT WITH MR YEATS will be released across Europe by Proper Records on September 19th. North American release will follow in 2012. The album was produced by Mike Scott and Waterboys' bassist Marc Arciero, and contains 14 new songs created from the lyrics of Ireland's greatest poet, WB Yeats (1865-1939). The songs were premiered at the band's raved-about Appointment With Mr Yeats concerts in Ireland and Britain in 2010 and early 2011, and the tracklist is:

The Hosting Of The Shee
Song Of Wandering Aengus
News For The Delphic Oracle
A Full Moon In March
Sweet Dancer
White Birds
The Lake Isle Of Innisfree
Mad As The Mist And Snow
Before The World Was Made
September 1913
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
Politics
Let The Earth Bear Witness
The Faery's Last Song

All the musicians from the most recent Mr Yeats concerts are featured: Steve Wickham (fiddle), Katie Kim (vocals), James Hallawell (keyboards), Kate St John (sax, oboe, cor anglais), Blaise Margail (trombone), Ralph Salmins (drums), Sarah Allen (flute) and Joe Chester (guitar) as well as Scott and Arciero. The album was recorded in London and Dublin between March and June 2011.

A special preview of track 5, SWEET DANCER has just been uploaded to Soundcloud.

The album will be released in both CD and double vinyl formats. Pre-order the CD or vinyl now on Amazon or CD at Play.com

Downloads on iTunes and Amazon will feature bonus tracks.

To read more about An Appointment With Mr Yeats, including an interview with Mike Scott, click here.

The album cover was created by Nina Hunter from a photograph by Paul Mac Manus.

Mike has co-written the opening track Beautiful Now on New York-based English singer James Maddock's new album Wake Up And Dream, released in the USA on June 21st. The song is one of the several Mike and James have written together, with Mike supplying lyrics and James the music. The track can be previewed here.

More information and details on how to order/download the album are here.

Mike Scott will give a talk and musical performance at The Purcell Room, South Bank Centre, London on Thursday evening, 15th September, titled YEATS TO MUSIC / POETRY TO SONG. Tickets for the evening, priced £17.50, are available now from the box office, (+44) 844 847 9910 or www.southbankcentre.co.uk. Mike will be joined by Waterboys piano player James Hallawell and vocalist Katie Kim, and the evening will include acoustic performances of several songs from the forthcoming album AN APPOINTMENT WITH MR YEATS. Mike will talk about Yeats' history of being set to music and the development of the Appointment With Mr Yeats show and album. Album release date, tracklist and purchase details will be announced next week.

Photo: Dave Mitchell

The Waterboys will play at Festival Du Chant De Marin, on Saturday 13th August at Paimpol, Brittany, France. Tickets are available now from the festival box office 0033 2 96 55 12 77 or online here. Other performers include Simple Minds, The Chieftains, and Sinead O'Connor. This will be the second Waterboys show in Brittany this summer, after Festival Interceltique in Lorient on Friday 5th August.

Mike recently gave a fascinating interview to The Quietus about the making of This Is The Sea, In A Special Place and much more. He was talking to writer Wyndham Wallace and you can read it here.

In A Special Place, the album of Mike Scott's piano/vocal demos from This Is The Sea is out now at all good record shops and online retailers. Click here to purchase at Amazon and here for iTunes. To listen to the album's version of The Pan Within click here

Mike will give a rare preview from his forthcoming book, a memoir about his life in music, at The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast, on Saturday 30 April. The reading will be held in The Black Box at 6pm and tickets, priced £5.00, are available here The festival runs from 28 April to 8 May and also features Bell X1, Mary Gauthier, Mark Steel and Jeremy Hardy.

For further info about the festival, click here.

Three summer festivals have just been announced. The Waterboys will appear as a six-piece, with new lap steel and guitar player MELVIN DUFFY augmenting the band. These will be regular shows, NOT "Mr Yeats" performances.

14 May: BEARDED THEORY, Kedleston Park, Derbyshire, ENGLAND
Tickets (Adult: £68, 12-16: £32, 5-11: £22, Under 5: Free) available from www.quaytickets.com and Festival Box Office: 08432 081835
Further info: www.beardedtheory.com

19 August: KARTFESTIVALEN, Gvarv, Telemark, NORWAY, billed as the world's first organic music festival. Tickets: £50 from 0047 815 33133 or www.billettservice.no

20 August: MAALROCK FESTIVAL, Aardalstangen, NORWAY. Tickets: from 0047 815 33133 or www.billettservice.no

English musician and composer Kate St John will join The Waterboys for their upcoming performances of Appointment With Mr Yeats in the UK (Jan 30 - Feb 4). Kate was invited to join the ensemble by Mike Scott and will play oboe, sax and cor anglais. Kate has played with Van Morrison, Damon Albarn, Philip Glass, Marianne Faithful and many other artists.

WORD magazine invited visitors to their website to write their own verses for The Waterboys' classic And A Bang On The Ear. A lot of people did and you can read their stories in verse here

Meanwhile a fan has set up a Facebook page for An Appointment With Mr Yeats

Mike Scott was interviewed in Dublin by Michael Moravek of the band Planeausters.

Mike Scott talks to Graeme Thomson about An Appointment With Mr Yeats in Scottish newspaper The Herald

3 new tracks have just been uploaded to soundcloud.

You're A Big Girl Now ~ the Bob Dylan song, recorded live by Mike, James Hallawell and the mOare Music Festival house band a week ago

Garbage Truck ~ a children's song recorded a few years ago for Mike's 3-year-old godson Casper Hawkins

On My Way To Big Light - Mike's 1999 collaboration with Latvian singer Ainars Meilavs

An encounter between Mike Scott and James Dean Bradfield inspired a song on the new Manic Street Preachers album Postcards From A Young Man. For more info click here and scroll down to the song "I Think I've Found It".

The Waterboys will play a regular show - not a Mr Yeats show - at World Forum, Den Haag, Holland on 20th November at 20:15 hrs. This is The Waterboys' first show in Den Haag for three years and the band's only show in Holland this year. It will be a seated concert featuring the festival line-up of Mike Scott, Steve Wickham, James Hallawell (keyboards), Marc Arciero (bass) and Binzer (drums). Tickets priced €45, €43 & €39 go on sale at 10am September 3rd and will be available here or by phone (callers from Holland only) at 0900 300 1250.

James Hallawell, ace keyboard player and veteran of Mike Scott’s late '90s band, has joined The Waterboys and will be performing at all the band’s shows, beginning with The Electric Picnic on September 3rd and the Appointment With Mr Yeats Irish tour in November. Says Mike: "I'm thrilled to have James on board. He brings a truckload of skills to the band: brilliant playing, charisma, arrangement and studio smarts, a sense of danger. And he's an old friend, one of the greatest Waterboys that never was – and now he is!"

To read Mike Scott’s blog “From All You Need Is Love to My Sweet Lord” all about the heyday of the spiritual hit single, 1967-71, click here

Headstrong's fantastic dance remix of the classic Waterboys track Trumpets is released this week on the new Headstrong album Timeless Part 1. The mix was done by Don Jackson, and both Mike Scott and Anto Thistlethwaite love it. "He makes my young voice sound incredible", said Mike, "as good as I've ever heard it sound". The album is available on CD from Amazon, Napster, Limewire and other outlets, and from Headstrong's label Sola Records also from iTunes and Beatport.

You can preview the track here.

Mike Scott has just opened a page at the music-sharing website Soundcloud where you can hear exclusive Waterboys songs plus various mysterious and wonderful tracks and mash-ups from Mike's home studio. More stuff is being added all the time and there are around twenty items on the page at time of writing. Tracks can also be uploaded to your own site or blogspot. To access click here

The Guardian has an article on setting poetry to music and features an interview with Mike talking about the "Mr Yeats" songs. The article can be viewed here.

The Waterboys/Sharon Shannon single SAINTS AND ANGELS, remixed by Mike Scott from the version on Sharon’s current album Saint And Scoundrels, is now available from iTunes Ireland. The single was due to be released Dec 4th but was mysteriously delayed by iTunes. We apologise to all of you who tried to download it over the past week. Meanwhile, those abroad will soon be able to purchase SAINTS AND ANGELS at the Waterboys own website store.

A memorial page for Waterboys bass player Mark Smith has been set up on Facebook, where people can read and leave messages about Mark. Several of Mark’s Waterboys colleagues have posted memories. To visit, click here

Mike has written a short piece for an Irish website about the room where he writes and works. To read, click here

Followers of Mike Scott’s Twitter page will know he spent much of Summer 2009 tweeting in Nadsat, the futuristic language invented by Anthony Burgess for his great novel A Clockwork Orange. Mike also invented many of his own Nadsat words and has compiled an illustrated Nadsat-English dictionary, more complete than the lexicon found in some editions of the book, and it is available online here.

Mike has written the introduction to The Gentleman And The Faun, a collection of vintage lectures and articles by the late Scottish mystic R. Ogilvie Crombie, published this month by Findhorn Press. For further information and to purchase the book, click here.

We're very sorry to inform you all that our friend and colleague, Waterboys bass player Mark Smith, has died unexpectedly at his home in London. We don't yet know the cause of death, but are told Mark was found dead on his sofa and as far as we know, he died peacefully. No foul play is suspected. Mark played on stage with Mike Scott only a few weeks ago at the Groucho Club in London and had been active since then, playing with various bands, musicians and friends around London. We will all miss Mark very much, not just for his fabulous bass playing but for his friendship and his wonderful, dry humour.

Mike was interviewed recently at Dublin’s Odessa Club by Darragh Doyle of culch.ie. They discussed the upcoming Waterboys show An Appointment With Mr Yeats and much more. Click here to view.

A rare film of Mike reading on of his poems, My Love For Her Is Fire, is up on youtube. Click here to view.

LET THE EARTH BEAR WITNESS, The Waterboys’ video/song tribute to the Iranian protesters is now uploaded to youtube with the song’s lyric, written by W.B. Yeats, in Farsi (Persian) subtitles. View it here.

Mike Scott, his wife Janette and Waterboys’ webmaster Ian Barratt have created a 3-minute video titled LET THE EARTH BEAR WITNESS in tribute to the Iranian protesters. The film shows fantastic images of the uprising in Iran to a soundtrack of a split-new Waterboys with a lyric by the great Irish poet WB Yeats. Says Mike: "Let The Earth Bear Witness is inspired by the amazing scenes of hundreds of thousands of Iranian people standing up for their rights and freedom. I took the words from two old Yeats poems, in which he was writing about Irish freedom fighters. But his words apply to any freedom fighters, anytime, anywhere in the world."

The film is live on youtube now and can be viewed here.

We’re working on a version with subtitles in Farsi and this will also be posted shortly. If you find the film inspiring please pass on or tweet the link to everyone you know.

LET THE EARTH BEAR WITNESS words by W.B. Yeats

They shall be remembered for ever
They shall be alive for ever
They shall be speaking for ever
The people shall hear them for ever

Let the sea bear witness
Let the wind bear witness
Let the earth bear witness
Let the stars bear witness!

Two brand new Waterboys tracks are available NOW to download at our website store here. The Passing Of The Shee and Vigilante form a double ‘a’ side download single available only on our website, price £1.49. The Passing Of The Shee has lyrics by Irish author J.M. Synge and was set to music and recorded by Mike Scott to mark the centenary of Synge’s death a hundred years ago today. Vigilante is a brand new Waterboys song, featuring Mike on most instruments and Steve Wickham on fuzz fiddle.
Samples of both tracks can be heard on the store, and the full-length Passing Of The Shee is available to listen to (but not download) on our myspace player here.

After nearly ten years of music Richard Naiff is leaving The Waterboys, though it is understood he may be involved in future projects from time to time. Richard is currently spending time with his family after the birth of his son Sam last summer, and as soon as we hear about Richard's next musical projects we'll keep you posted. Mike Scott said: "Richard has been a wonderful colleague and friend, a musical wizard, and a great Waterboy. We wish him all the very best in the future and will be staying in touch with him."