

# Event Details

- **Event Name**: THE UTOPIA STRONG // Star & Shadow Cinema, Newcastle
- **Event Start and End Date**: Fri, 08 May, 2026 at 07:30 pm (+01:00)
- **Event Description**: Brave Exhibitions + Tyne &amp; Queer Present: 

THE UTOPIA STRONG
https://www.facebook.com/theutopiastrong
https://theutopiastrong.bandcamp.com/album/the-utopia-strong

+ Special Guest Supports TBA. 

Friday 8th May 2026. 7:30pm. 

The life of a psychonaut can take one to many plateaus of reality. Opinions vary as regards  which of these are either desirable or optimal. All things considered though, it’s fair to say that  once the average cerebral wanderer finds themselves a stoned skeleton on a motorbike,  it’s a sign that they’re going places.  
Such were the movements of The Utopia Strong, in making their third and arguably trippiest  full length album for Rocket Recordings. As the band explain: “When recording we tend to have  books, bits of art and interesting things lying around the place. (Kavus) had recently bought the  Paul Kirchner compendium, Awaiting The Collapse. Paul’s character Dope Rider (the skeleton  in question) drives around the desert, getting into all manner of high jinx and spouting cosmic  philosophy, highlighting the absurdities of life, death and the American mythos. “When we had  created that particular track, one of our most beautiful and outré, it seemed to name itself.  Certainly, we were looking at the comic strips while listening to it and something about it’s  wide-screen vibes and the beautiful desert seemed to marry together.” 
Serendipity has always played a strong role in The Utopia Strong, with the improvisatory  approach of Steve Davis, Kavus Torabi and Mike York - as well as the innate chemistry between  the trio - allowing them to take extensions through dimensions that frequently end up as much  of a surprise to the band as the listener.  
The band has summarily found ways to evolve its approach to facilitate the most adventurous  exploratory missions possible. In this realm, the band’s formidable history - Steve as a snooker  champion and bona fide household name, Kavus as a psychedelic and progressive polymath in  the like of Gong, Cardiacs et al, and Mike in his work with Coil, Current 93 and as one of the UK’s  foremost bagpipe makers - is transcended and usurped by their combined psychic chemistry.  
Yet more than anything else this remains an evolutionary process. “All the pieces on Doperider  began as purely electronic pieces, with Mike and Steve on modular synths and Kavus on an  analogue synth” the band relate. “We were deliberately trying to not repeat ourselves and, for  this reason, made a point of changing the model a little. Not that we’ve ever been necessarily  conventional but I think this album goes a little deeper than the previous two studio albums.” 

Doperider does indeed take the band down a variety of auditory pathways previously  unexplored, and further into the realms of more surrealistic visions akin to the systems-built bliss  of Caterina Barbieri, the unforgiving noisescapes of Hiro Kone or the alien soundtracks of latter day Laurie Spiegel. “Certainly Steve’s listening habits have changed somewhat since the first  album, he has gone deeper into abstract electronica and musique concrete as well as becoming  increasingly adept with his modular set up. This seems to have formed a backbone to how the  music developed” reflects Kavus.  

Hence the coruscating intensity of the title track and the elegiac rapture of ‘Unity Of Light’ showcase a still more moving and melancholic approach to their art, alongside the blissful  ‘Harpies’, which features the vocals of Katharine Blake (Miranda Sex Garden/Medieval Baebes)  Elsewhere curveballs strike such as the strident and stentorian curtain-raiser ‘Prophecy’, which  utilises the influence of Magma and Zeuhl music - a longstanding passion for all three members -  for the first time in earnest. “It sits better at the start of the album as otherwise it would disrupt  the decent into the beautiful hell hole that unfolds” as Steve notes.  
Essentially however, the mission of The Utopia Strong remains intact - to offer a transformative  pathway to wonders anew. “Well, we are making psychedelic music or, if you will, head music” reflects Kavus. “We put an awful lot of detail into each piece. It’s certainly not minimalist. Often  after our shows people will remark that we had made them feel like they were on drugs. That’s the  idea really. We’ll take you on a voyage of self-discovery that won’t preclude showing up to work  on time the next day. Although really the core message of our music is ‘Quit your job and start a  commune.” 

As Steve notes: “Hopefully we’ve done justice to the comic book character Dope Rider and that  he’d have loved riding along on his Harley Davison on another quest, with the wind blowing  through his rib cage, listening to this album. if the audience choose the psychonaut road, then  we are delighted to have been of service.”
- **Event URL**: https://allevents.in/newcastle-upon-tyne/the-utopia-strong-star-and-shadow-cinema-newcastle/200029567262232
- **Event Categories**: music, entertainment, art, exhibitions, trips-adventures
- **Interested Audience**: 
  - total_interested_count: 44

## Ticket Details

- **Ticket URL**: https://www.seetickets.com/event/the-utopia-strong/the-star-and-shadow-cinema/3595247?utm_source=AllEvents.in&utm_medium=event-discovery-platform&utm_campaign=newcastle+upon+tyne-events

## Event venue details

- **city**: Newcastle Upon Tyne
- **state**: EN
- **country**: United Kingdom
- **location**: Star and Shadow Cinema
- **lat**: 54.979330894739
- **long**: -1.5951867157891
- **full address**: Star and Shadow Cinema, 210 Warwick Street,Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

## Event Organizer details

- **affiliate_id**: 2
- **organizer**: Brave Exhibitions (https://allevents.in/org/brave-exhibitions/24760953)

## Event gallery

- **Alt text**: banner
  - **Image URL**: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events4/banners/b5ae31db283819eb041328ceeb47352f29c00d512c55681e8abcffb5331185d6-rimg-w1200-h1200-dc010101-gmir?v=1774218729
- **Alt text**: thumbnail
  - **Image URL**: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events4/banners/3c4de0653b0e82fafaa963ed5704ea92219d0ad9aa0e677186ff31fbb626a712-rimg-w300-h300-dc010102-gmir?v=1774218729

## FAQs

- **Q**: When is the event happening?
  - **A:** Fri, 08 May, 2026 at 07:30 pm (+01:00)
- **Q**: Where is the event happening?
  - **A:** Star and Shadow Cinema, 210 Warwick Street,Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
- **Q**: Who is organizing the event?
  - **A:** Brave Exhibitions
- **Q**: What type of event is this?
  - **A:** music, entertainment, art, exhibitions, trips-adventures
- **Q**: Where can I find ticket details about THE UTOPIA STRONG // Star & Shadow Cinema, Newcastle ?
  - **A:** You can find ticket details about this event on AllEvents.

## Structured Data (JSON-LD)

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