UB40 tickets & concert schedule

The story of UB40 begins in 1978, when eight friends and schoolmates from Birmingham, England, decided to create a new band, which later became one the most commercially successful reggae groups. The first line up consisted of Ali Campbell (vocals, guitar), Robin Campbell (vocals, guitar), Earl Falconer (bass), Jimmy Brown (drums), Jimmy Lynn (keyboards), Yomi Babayemi (percussion), Norman Hassan (percussion, trombone) and Brian Travers (saxophone).

The group started to perform live in Birmingham and in 1979, Babyemi and Lynn left the group, with Mickey Virtue replacing the latest. Terence Wilson (percussion and vocals) joined them later and they continued the live appearances in several venues, including their opening act to The Pretenders. UB40’s first album was “Signing Off”, which was released in 1980 and peaked at no. 2 on the album charts in the UK, with the cover of Randy Newman’s, “I Think It's Going to Rain Today" to separate. It was followed by four albums that entered at the top five of the UK charts, with 1983’s “Labour of Love” to be the band’s first album that reached the top and also entered at the US charts. It included the cover hits “Please Don't Make Me Cry” and Neil Diamond’s “Red Red Wine” that reached the first position on both charts in the UK and USA, becoming one of their signature songs.

In the following decades, UB40 recorded 14 studio albums, including the series cover albums under the name “Labour of Love” I, II, III and IV, with 1993’s “Promises and Lies” becoming number one in the UK and no. 6 in the USA. Among their successful songs are their no. 1 cover to Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe” with Chrissie Hynde, “Sing Our Own Song”, “Breakfast in Bed” (another cover of Dusty Springfield’s version, again with Hynde), “Can't Help Falling in Love”, their version of Elvis Presley’s song, that is the group’s biggest international success as far as singles are concerned, and many other. UB 40’s last release is the cover album “A Real Labour of Love” that came out in March of 2018 that peaked at the second position in the UK.

UB40’s line-up changed in 2008 when Campbell and Virtue left the group. Vocalist Duncan Campbell, Ali’s brother became the new member and over five years later, Astro also abandoned the group. In 2014, Ali Campbell, along with Virtue and Astro toured using the name UB40 and released an album named “Silhouette. UB40 have also recorded four live and several compilation albums, while they have taken part in a couple of soundtracks.