Matt Anderson.

about

Matt Andersen has announced a return to Belfast, happening at The Black Box on 11
November. Now an established favourite visitor to the city, whose shows always sell out, this time he brings “The Hammer & The Rose 2025” tour.

Matt Andersen’s The Hammer & The Rose is a veritable garden of heart. On his latest record, the
Canadian songwriter opts for the kind of thoughtful, tender sentiments and arrangements one might
associate with flowers, trading in the hard steel edges of his heavy blues riffs for delicate
compositions and a warm sweetness. The title track provides an elegant metaphor for the differences
and push-and-pull relationship between the head and the heart: the head wants to blaze a trail,
prioritize practicality, and motor through things, while the heart wants to slow down, feel things, feel
good. On The Hammer & The Rose, it’s the heart – the rose, the honey, the soul – that (mostly) wins
out. But this is, of course, a Matt Andersen record. A surplus of heart is to be expected.

When Matt Andersen steps on stage, he brings a lifetime of music to every note he plays.
Andersen’s stage presence is informed by decades of cutting his teeth in dusty clubs, dim-lit
bars, and grand theatres all over the world, delivering soulful performances that run the
gamut from intimate to wall-shaking. In the studio, he’s always brought the same attention to
detail and commitment to craft as he has to his live show, and the result – a multi-faceted and
poignant body of work – has led him to amass over 31 million streams on Spotify and 30
million views on YouTube.
In addition to headlining major festivals, clubs and theatres throughout North America,
Europe, and Australia, he has shared the stage and toured with Marcus King, Beth Hart,
Marty Stuart, Greg Allman, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Randy Bachman, Serena Ryder, Tab
Benoit, and more.
Andersen nabbed the 2013 and 2016 European Blues Awards for Best Solo/Acoustic Act,
was the first ever Canadian to take home top honours in the solo category at the 2010
International Blues Challenge in Memphis, won the CIMA Road Gold award in 2015, and has
won multiple Maple Blues Awards. His previous record ‘Matt Andersen & The Big Bottle of
Joy’ was nominated for a Juno Award in 2024.