Since Kezia Gill last played in the North East, a lot has happened – and now she’s headed back to Newcastle.
When the singer – one of UK country’s leading lights – opened her “and friends” tour in Darlington in 2025, few people, if any, knew it would be her last as an unsigned artist.
Since then, it’s no stretch to say that the Derby songstress has seen a dream come true, with Universal Music’s Snakefarm label – home to artists such as Marty Stuart, Darius Rucker and Eric Church – swooping in to sign her up to a deal.
Kezia’s kicking off 2026 with a new album, All On Red, out of February 13, less than a week ahead of her new tour stopping off at Think Tank, in Newcastle’s Digital, on February 19.
So, what can we expect, given every Kezia Gill tour has a very distinct feel?
“I try and keep my shows interesting, which is why you will notice a difference in them, but the one thing that I always want to remain and stay the same is the energy in the room. I love to take people on a journey, I love to have real high moments where everyone’s singing and rocking, and I love to have real intimate moments where it’s like just me and them.
“Those key factors will remain, but obviously the biggest thing is going to be the music. It’s all new music. We’ve had two singles off this album. There will be a third, which is coming very soon. But the majority of it is going to be new material that I’ve never played live.
“So, I think for fans of mine, that have supported me over the years, they’re used to the hits that I do, it’s going to be a real nice chance for me to present the next chapter of my musical journey. I’ve been sitting on these songs for a long time, and I’m chomping at the bit to get them out there and I just hope people love them as much as I do.
“I always do try to leave people smiling. We’re going to have a great band, we’ve got great players on the road with us, we have an amazing special artist joining us on the road, Alyssa (Bonagura), who was the producer of the album, so she knows these songs inside out, and we’re going to have some beautiful moments where it’s just me and the crowd, and we’re going to have full-blown, full band moments.
“Hopefully, I’m going to get everyone singing at the top of their voices, and I just want everyone to leave feeling something, whether that’s joy, euphoria, or reflection. I love to connect with an audience, so if there’s someone who’s never seen me play before, I want them to feel something and I want them to leave happier than when they arrived.
“There’s so much going on at the minute, and February’s a tough month, we’re well over the Christmas and New Year hype and Spring seems so far away. I’ve never actually toured at this time of year, so I’m hoping we can just all get together and bring a bit of life into the start of 2026.”
All On Red was recorded more than a year ago, in one day, in a studio in Nashville, with Music City-based session musicians.
“It was a long-time dream to do that. It was one of those things where I didn’t really know what I was going to come out with at the end of it. I sort of went in with the songs and I was changing my mind, right up until the day we recorded, as to what was going to be recorded. What I walked out of the studio with at the end of that day is, in my opinion, the best music I’ve ever made. The musicians were incredible. I think the writers that I’ve worked with, plus my solo writing, had only got better. It’s crazy, because I’ve been sitting on this album now for over a year, and I am so excited to get it out there – I just want people to hear the songs. I want to be able to play the songs, and that’s what 2026 is going to be all about.
“I hadn’t met them before. It’s just such a fine-tuned process over there and these guys not only play professionally and tour, but being session musicians and going into a studio, having never heard the song, having never met the artist, looking at a sheet of paper with some numbers on it and playing the most incredible music, is what they do for a living. So, I could have absolutely got my guys, got a studio, a couple of weeks rehearsing, but we went in and we did it in a day. We have an incredible musicianship, here in the UK, but Nashville is where the best players in the world go. There’s no denying that. It was an incredible day, with an incredible studio, and I think it really shows on the All On Red album.
“What’s nice is that it’s the first time I’ve recorded an album where it just happens in the room and the music is played and recorded. I’d always done it before where we would record drums, then we would put guitar on, and do vocals, and it would layer. Even though you could have more control with that and you could say ‘right, let’s do that again, let’s change that’, it was beautiful to just let the songs happen. And with such talented musicians, they learn to listen to each other – there’s stops and starts and little bits in the music, which you would swear was rehearsed and it wasn’t. They just know how to listen to each other, and they know how to make it come to life. And what’s great, I would say 90% of the vocals on the album are all live from that day, there were only a few bits that we had to re-dub after. So my vocal, it’s like I’m performing, because I’m hearing this song come to life in front of me and, as a result, I think it’s probably some of the best vocal takes I’ve ever done in a studio. Something people have often said about me is ‘she’s better live’, and that’s because I have the energy and I have the feel. I struggle to get that, sometimes, when I’m stood in a booth with a microphone. I feed off the crowd, so the fact there was about 15 people in the room, and they were all playing, I was performing, and I think that comes across on the record as well. It was just like a mixing pot of all the right ingredients, it all came together on that day.