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Sat 30 Aug ’25 20:00
Mik Artistik
Compelling, mesmeric, spellbinding...daft.
Tickets

Mik Artistik

Compelling, mesmeric, spellbinding...daft.
Chapel Arts Centre
Sat 30 Aug ’25 20:00
Sat 30 Aug ’25
20:00
  • Sat 30 Aug ’25
    Doors open
    19:30
    Start
    20:00
    Chapel Arts Centre, BA1 1QR
    Tickets
  • Ticket Price: £16 (exc. fees)

Mik's an artist who manages to hypnotise and terrorise in the way that no other does, all whilst making music to save souls, cause confusion and spread genuine hilarity along the way. Who else out there sings about love, mortality, invisible cloaks, Adidas Sambas, and plastic garden ornaments?

His meandering, ad-hoc, flights of fancy are legendary  "as is his partner in crime Jonny Flockton's exquisite guitar playing. He has a chameleon-like ability to bring melody, form and musicianship to the teetering chaos that looms over each performance.

There is a reason that Mik Artistik's Ego trip have become legendary Glastonbury performers since they first appeared there in 2007  " for many the festival doesn't start until they've seen them.

The story of how Mik got to this point gives you a sense of where his fearless performances come from. In the early 80's after art college, he floated around working odd jobs and labouring on building sites. After a period "on the dole" he decided to leave state support behind and live off his wits. His grand plan: to take an ironing board to the Merion shopping centre in Leeds and sell old ties off it. Sadly, this wasn't the entrepreneurial innovation he hoped it would be. But fate would intervene, and 1982 he drew a friend in a launderette (it was the 80's,remember) on a paper bag in biro.

He had a talent, and realised he could make it pay.

Part of

... it's human, it's real and it has soul

- Iggy Pop after naming 'Sweet Leaf of the North' as his favourite song of the decade.

Mik spent the next thirty years stopping people in pubs, shops and street, offering paper bag portraits. This was a man who was comfortable taking a chance and didn't care what people thought of him. So, when he found himself on stage in a pub improvising a story  " and had the crowd in the palm of his hands, he knew he'd found his true calling. First, in stand-up, where he finished runner up on Channel 4's "So You Think You're Funny?" (The winner was an act called Peter Kay, we're not entirely sure what happened to him).

It's not unusual for them to play 10 gigs each year on Worthy Farm.

But this isn't a band whose talents only translate in live gigs. Their songs have an innate ability to provoke a response on the radio too.

Connecting to our primal emotions of love, fear and joy. There's a reason that Iggy Pop fell in love with the band, and named their song Sweet Leaf Of The North as his favourite track of the decade.