Scottish phenomenon Gerry Cinnamon closed his huge UK tour in style at Scotland’s national football stadium in July, performing for over 100,000 fans at Glasgow’s Hampden Park over two unforgettable nights. He made history as the first independent act and first Scot to sell out multiple nights at the national stadium.
It capped an incredible 5 years since debut album Erratic Cinematic was released. Already Certified Gold in the UK, and featuring multiple platinum singles ('Sometimes' and 'Belter'), the album is now set to achieve Platinum status this year. Originally put out independently and quite unconventionally, Gerry picks up the story:
“Mad patter. What a rollercoaster.
Few fun facts about the album.
The majority of the album was recorded in my wee flat in the East End, the other half in the studio.
I bought an old Mac and some mics and stayed up for months trying to get my head around using a Mac for the first time, gainstaging, mic placement, room acoustics, compression, reverb decays, delay sync, automation, sampling, mixing, mastering and everything in between.
Every time I tried to record I ended up writing a new one.
Belter, Diamonds in the Mud, Sun Queen, What Have You Done, Canter, Dark Days, The Bonny and about 50 other songs were all written while I was supposed to be recording the album.
The album was released on its own with no label or marketing or radio or management or strategy or plans to even do anything other than satisfy all the folk wanting the tunes.
Weeks before the release I was waking up in my flat to the sound of massive pallets of CDs and records getting dumped in my street. All needing moved, unboxed, unsealed, signed, resealed, packaged and posted to the 1000s of folk that had pre-ordered.
On the off days I wasn’t unloading and packing I was standing about half baked in a newsagent post office with only one free counter, pissing off the old ladies by holding up the queue from dawn till dusk with big black bags full of CDs needing processed for different locations all over the world. A mega slow process.
Throughout this debacle I was staying awake and crashing for a day or two. Two mornings in a row I slept in and missed the post office and the deadline was slipping. Third morning i slept in again and jumped a taxi with a few hours left before closing. Enough time to do at least 100. It was raining buckets.
When I got there the shops were cordoned off by police cars and blue tape. Instead of soaking up the clouds with my clobber I dipped under the police tape where I met a lovely copper screaming and waving a spring baton. After almost getting the jail my big daft cardboard bags started filling up with water and I accepted the loss and bailed.
Was told later it was an armed robbery I was trying to involve myself in with my big daft bags full of wet cds like a head case. Luckily the packages were waterproof and got wiped dry and delivered.
That’s a wee snippet of the backstory to Erratic. Never really got into it cos the story’s fucking ridiculous. I’ll get into the rest of it at another time.
Cheers to everyone who’s ever bought the records or came to a gig or even a good word. I appreciate it all and tbh when I think about it I struggle to get my head round the numbers.”
Having organically built up a huge following over the past 5 years, Gerry Cinnamon has become the UK’s biggest independent artist.
It was 2018 before Gerry Cinnamon played his first shows outside Scotland selling out multiple nights and upgraded venues in every major city across the UK and Ireland.
Returning the following year, the now legendary live performer jumped up to play to 130,000 people on his first UK and Ireland Arena tour; including a record-breaking biggest indoor show ever held in Scotland.
In April 2020, Gerry’s hotly-anticipated second album The Bonny shot straight to Number 1 in the Official Album Charts in the UK. Now certified gold, the album went on to become the third biggest selling UK album released that year.
The culmination of a summer on the road, the long-awaited, huge hometown Hampden shows delivered as expected. First announced in 2019, but delayed due to the pandemic, it was clear that the massed ranks of Gerry’s followers, who snapped up every ticket in a matter of hours, were ready to party. He also gave us a flavour of new music, playing an unreleased track ‘Sacred’ and a stunning tribute to his hero Billy Connolly with his own rendition of ‘I Wish I Was in Glasgow’.
Gerry’s gigs have become folklore – joyous mass fan singalongs inspiring devotion and a dedicated following that has swelled, via word-of-mouth, to global phenomenon.
The Hampden headline, part of a 350,000-capacity headline tour, originally due to take place in 2020, eventually happened across 2021-22. It included sold out shows at Birmingham and Manchester Arenas, London’s iconic Alexandra Palace, the 25,000 capacity Malahide Castle, Dublin, and Musgrave Park Stadium, Cork. He also headlined at Swansea’s Singleton Park, the second biggest show ever held in the Welsh city.
