Friday
Having split in 2010, five years after the runaway success of the platinum-selling, chart-topping The JCB Song, Nizlopi reformed last summer to play a few festivals and remembered they really liked being Nizlopi, which is why Luke Concannon and John Parker are playing more shows this year.
Nizlopi, named after a Hungarian girl that Luke had a crush on at school, got together in the late 1980s in Leamington Spa and went about building themselves a solid fan-base the old-fashioned way – by playing lots and lots of gigs wherever they could. Their first album, Half These Songs Are About You, came out in 2004 and was followed in June the next year by a single, The JCB Song, which flopped. Badly.
Reissued a couple of weeks before Christmas, The JCB Song was then picked up by Radio 2 and hit the top of the charts a week later, outselling its nearest rival, Westlife, by two to one. Aided by Monkeehub’s memorable animated video it went on to sell more than half a million copies across Europe. Two more albums – Make It Happen and Start Beginning – followed in 2008, but after taking 2009 off to contemplate the future, early in 2010 the pair announced they were to go their separate ways.
However, much to the delight of their many fans, a tentative reunion last summer has seen a rekindling of the Nizlopi flame and the boys are now recording again and will bring a mix of old and new material to Purbeck this year.
Website: www.nizlopi.com