Stephen Fretwell / Later Youth - Hebden Bridge Trades Club - 15th June 2022

Stephen Fretwell is coming to the end of the second of his tours around his very long-awaited comeback album Busy Guy. A sold-out Trades Club stood bewitched by his spell as he ran through a marathon twenty-three song set taken from all three of his albums interspersed with irreverent chat, audience participation and a wit that made it into a truly special evening.

EVEN THE STARS 2021 PLAYLIST

We've compiled a playlist of forty of our favourite songs of 2021, a mix of singles and album tracks from new and established bands.

Full list - VLURE, Ist Ist, James, Odd Morris, Julia Bardo, Marissa Nadler, Self Esteem, Wolf Alice, Dry Cleaning, Low Hummer, The Slow Readers Club, Stephen Fretwell, LIINES, Lime Garden, wych elm, Soot Sprite, FIKA, Egyptian Blue, Sprints, Proletariat, Blanketman, Rosellas, Pixie Cut Rhythm Orchestra, Meggie Lennon, talker, Wyldest, Hectorine, Solis, Lanterns On The Lake, Roxanne De Bastion, Blankenberge, English Teacher, Francis Of Delirium, Hates Talking, Grandmas House, James Holt, Thyla, Bleach Lab, The Clockworks and Bullet Girl

EVEN THE STARS ALBUMS OF 2021 - 5 to 1

2021 has been a very strong year for albums. Our top three would have topped this list in most of the years that we've being doing this. Our top five features a band about to celebrate its fortieth anniversary with an album that stands up against anything they've ever released, a Manchester band's second album in two years who are hopefully on the brink of bigger things, a rich emotional debut from an Italian songwriter, a long-awaited return after over a decade away from a much-loved singer-songwriter and a ninth solo album from a singer entering her third decade in the business.

Stephen Fretwell / George O'Hanlon - Manchester Gorilla - 8th November 2021

Stephen Fretwell might not come from Manchester, but it's here where he had most of his musical grounding and spent the time he was signed to a major label in the mid-2000s and the city very much treats him like one of their own. Back after a couple of very intimate warm-ups at the Eagle Inn and the Night And Day around the launch of Busy Guy, his first album for fourteen years, this Gorilla show sold out almost immediately and unlike many shows we'd been to there was very little in the way of no-shows. Support came from London's George O'Hanlon.

Stephen Fretwell - Manchester Night And Day Cafe - 24th July 2021

To many people the Night And Day Cafe is a second home. For Stephen Fretwell. For us at Even The Stars. It's fitting that this is the place for his Manchester album launch for his first album in fourteen years, the top 40 Busy Guy, and for our first restriction-free show for sixteen months. Performing a sizeable chunk of Busy Guy and a few old favourites to a dedicated crowd of Mancunians and those who'd travelled from further afield, for forty-five minutes we lost ourselves in music.

Stephen Fretwell - Salford Eagle Inn - 25th June 2021

"Where's Fretwell?" has been a catchphrase in the corners of the internet that remembered the unique charms of the Manchester-via-Scunthorpe songwriter Stephen Fretwell from the middle of the 2000s when he released two much-loved but commercially-ignored albums Magpie and Man On The Roof. After twelve years in the wilderness, he's about to return with a new album Busy Guy - and we were fortunate enough to be in the twenty-five strong socially distanced crowd at Salford Eagle's Inn for just his second comeback show.

TRACK OF THE DAY : Stephen Fretwell - Embankment

Stephen Fretwell continues his long-awaited return with the second track Embankment and the announcement of his first album in thirteen years, Busy Guy, which is released in July. 

TRACK OF THE DAY : Stephen Fretwell - Oval

#WheresFretwell became an internet question that noone could answer for a decade as Stephen Fretwell disappeared completely from the music scene after his 2007 album Man On The Roof and his last tour in December 2011. His movements became the stuff of internet conjecture with rumours of forthcoming new music raising hopes that then became nothing. But now, ten years on, he is back, with an album in the pipeline if the latest rumours are to believed, and a beautiful first track called Oval.