List of NME concert tours
Open-knowledge reference entry
The NME Tours consist of a variety of tours organised by British music industry publication NME. Throughout the year, NME sponsors numerous tours of the United Kingdom by various up-and-coming and established bands in a variety of formats. The tours are titled to reflect the genre and type of bands playing on them.
ShockWaves NME Awards Tours
The ShockWaves NME Awards Tours (known without sponsorship as the NME Awards Tour before 1999, and the Brat Bus Tour before 1998) normally took place in the lead up to the official NME Awards themselves. The tour was known to sell out in just a matter of hours. The tour normally showcast the main protagonists of the independent alternative rock scene, with a number of relatively unheard of bands usually supporting more mainstream acts. A number of previous support acts on the tour went on to become very successful commercially, such as Arctic Monkeys (support act in 2006) and Franz Ferdinand (who played the opening slot in 2004). From 2005, the tour was sponsored by unisex hair product company ShockWaves.
In 2007, the main NME Awards tour was split into two different tours of four bands each. The first tour, the ShockWaves NME Indie Rock Tour was created to reflect the growing indie rock scene in Britain throughout 2006–2007. The second tour, the ShockWaves NME Indie Rave Tour, displays the small number of bands currently associated with the new rave music genre.
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