Legendary Irish guitarist Bernie Tormé, best known for his work with Ozzy Osbourne and Ian Gillan, will call time on his touring career in 2018 with one last trek around the UK. 'The Final Fling' tour begins on November 22nd at Facebar in Reading with nine shows on the list, including a stop at Troon's Winterstorm Festival before rounding off at The Bear in Weston-super-Mare on December 1st.

Tormé has spent much of 2018 working on his latest album. With a career spanning more than 24 records as a solo artist or band member his imminent new release, Shadowland will be a double album, and his first with his new power-trio line up. The album will also feature a guest appearance by Tormé's former Gillan bandmate Colin Towns on keyboards. Recorded in Tormé's own rural, country studio the album will include songs like ‘Water into Wine’, ‘Sun in Splendour’, and first single ‘Come the Revolution’ all of which are jam-packed with powerful drums, cutting riffs and sything solos. Of particular note is the ‘Innovative Jam/Chaos Theory’ cut, a fifeteen minute epic for which Bernie invited fans on his Pledge Music campaign to record their own parts, before piecing the song together himself.

In a career spanning almost 50 years, Bernie Tormé found fame as lead guitarist for Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan's namesake solo band who - for a time - were almost as big as the singer's parent group. Tormé then stepped in to help out Ozzy Osbourne after the tragic death of Randy Rhoads before fronting his own band's Electric Gypsies and Tormé.

In 2013 he returned to his favoured trio format and has since released three acclaimed albums, 'Flowers & Dirt' (2014), 'Blackheart' (2015) and the 3CD ‘Dublin Cowboy’ (2017) which included a live, and acoustic and a studio album CD. All of these records were crowdfunded, a process which Tormé enjoyed:

In the past you were pretty distant and separated from your fans with a record label in between" he says, "Making these albums with pledge campaigns has been a great experience. I like having the connection with fans and getting the feedback direct on making an album.”   

'The Final Fling' UK Tour Dates:

22nd Nov - Facebar, Reading

23rd Nov - Queen Vic, South Shields

24th Nov – Winterstorm Festival, Troon

25th Nov – Bannermans, Edinburgh  

27th Nov - Robin II, Bilston, Wolverhampton

28th Nov - Craufurd Arms, Milton Keynes

29th Nov – Lanterns, Folkestone

30th Nov – The Blackheart, London

1st Dec - The Bear, Weston-super-Mare

For info and tickets: https://www.bernietormeofficial.com/

The first single from Shadowland was released on November 1st and can be streamed on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-427143189/come-the-revolution

Author: Cameron Arndt

Cameron Arndt is a musician and freelance writer from Glasgow, Scotland. He writes for his own music review website (www.rockandrolltraffic.com) and also contributes to Music Talkers.