The long-awaited headlining tour to celebrate Amsterdam’s brilliant year will begin in Gateshead this Friday. Tickets for all the shows are still available and the 6/7-piece Amsterdam tour de force promise you a feast of passion and entertainment. Buy tickets now

Also you can tune in to City Talk on Saturday morning to hear Ian being interviewed by Britain’s best journalist Brian Reade from the Daily Mirror. Ian will be discussing Amsterdam’s placing in the all-time top 50 Merseyside albums so tune in to find out if the boys made it at 10:30am!

Ian will play a solo show as very special guest of the brilliant Irish singer Damien Dempsey on Halloween night, 31 October. The show is at the New Picket in Liverpool and is nearly sold out.

Also Ian appeared on BBC TV last week,you can watch again at bbc.co.uk.

The late John Peel is to have a train named after him – and Ian has been asked to perform Does This Train Stop on Merseyside? at the naming ceremony.

Speaking highly of the Amsterdam single from 2005, Peel’s widow Sheila Ravenscroft said: “He wasn’t capable of playing it without crying. If he played it on the radio he’d have to put something on straight afterwards because he wouldn’t be able to speak.”

The naming ceremony will take place at Liverpool South Parkway Interchange in Garston.

Read more in this BBC news article.

You can now get your ticket for the big end of ’08 party and Amsterdam’s biggest-ever headlining show at the Carling Academy 1 on Saturday 6 December from gigantic.com.

Support on the night comes from a full band performance from Scouse nineties legends, the reformed Rain as well as the brilliant Laura Critchely who has had a great year herself; and newly born Scouse exponents of soul and pop The Trestles.

By the band’s own request the tickets have been capped at an unbelievable price of just £10.

Also the date for the much anticipated return to Glasgow is the December 3 and NOT the December 2, as previously advertised.

Amsterdam will hit the road at the end of the year with their first headlining tour for over two years.

The boys and girls are celebrating their best year yet, one which has seen them duet for EMI with Elvis Costello, release the new, brilliantly-received album Arm in arm and play the show of all shows at Glastonbury.

The tour will be promoted by CMP, the people responsible for the Summer pops every year in Liverpool. It calls in at Gateshead, Wolverhampton, London, Stratford, Glasgow, York before ending in Liverpool.

This final date will be a celebratory end-of-year party with brilliant support from Laura Critchely, The Trestles and an as-yet-undisclosed main support act.

This will be the biggest headlining date the gang has ever done so tell your friends, book your hotel and polish up your voices: this is the big one!

Mindful of present economic conditions, the tickets for this event are being capped at the unbelievably low price of just £10! Tickets are on sale now.