Nearly three years after the death of Mark Lanegan, the beloved grunge singer’s closest friends and collaborators will bound together this December for a London tribute concert.
Marking what would have been his 60th birthday, Mark Lanegan – A Celebration will feature guests like his Queens of the Stone Age cohorts Josh Homme and Troy Van Leeuwen, fellow Soulsavers vocalist Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode, his Gutter Twins partner Greg Dulli, and more.
Also on the one-night-only lineup for the Dec. 5 concert at London’s Roundhouse are the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, the Kills’ Alison Mosshart, Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, Duke Garland, the Soulsavers, and “additional very special guests.” The tribute concert is being staged in conjunction with the singer’s family and the Mark Lanegan Foundation.
Lanegan, the Screaming Trees frontman and prolific solo artist, died in February 2022 after a long battle with long Covid. Eddie Vedder and Nick Cave were among the artists to pay tribute to the vocalist following his death.
“Go online and watch Mark sing Blixa [Bargeld’s] ‘father’ part with me in ‘The Weeping Song’ on that tour,” Cave wrote. “As a frontman, I move around a lot on stage, I can’t help it, it is a habitual nervous thing, a kind of neurotic compensation for a voice I have never felt that comfortable with. But watch Mark, watch how he walks onto the stage, plants himself at the mic stand, one tattooed fist halfway down the stand, the other resting on top of the mic, immobile, massive, male. When the time comes to sing, he simply opens his mouth and releases a blues, a blues lived deeply and utterly earned, and that voice tears right through you, his sheer force on stage absolutely humbling. A greatness, Mark, a greatness — a true singer, a superb writer and beautiful soul, loved by all.”
Recently, a 20th anniversary reissue of Lanegan’s 2004 album Bubblegum was released, featuring an unheard collaboration with Beck along with other unreleased tracks from that LP’s sessions.
