If you want to attend both shows please buy the "ticket for both shows!" option in the 2pm listing. If you can only attend the evening show please purchase here.

Darren Hayman returns to the Cube with not one but two shows of only Hefner material. Breaking God's Heart and Fidelity Wars in the 2pm matinee showing and We Love The City and Dead Media at 6pm. Don't miss out!

With Support from Charley Stone (Desperate Journalist/Sleeper)

Darren Hayman is a thoughtful, concise and detailed songwriter. He eschews the big, the bright and the loud for the small, twisted and lost. For 15 years, and over 14 albums, Hayman has taken a singular and erratic route through England’s tired and heartbroken underbelly.

Hayman was influenced by punk through his art college years, but throughout the ’90s he was inspired by American lo-fi indie-rock. A chance meeting with John Peel favourites New Bad Things and shows with them in London and Portland USA taught Darren the DIY ethic and soon he was self-releasing records by his first band, Hefner.

Hefner’s first records attracted the attention of cult indie label Too Pure and the broadcasting legend John Peel. The band’s first album, Breaking God’s Heart (1998), mixed raw, sexual words with religious imagery and earned the band a loyal, intelligent following in the UK, Europe and the USA.

The second album, The Fidelity Wars (1999), shifted the songwriting focus to the personal and remains a fan favourite. By the third album, Hayman had started to develop a sharp, incisive voice. The song narratives now took place in the toilets and kitchens of everyday British homes. Hayman sang about the thread on skirt hems and the hairline cracks in the china as well as the tears on cheeks. Soul influenced and layered with warm brass, We Love the City (2002)became the critical and commercial highlight of Hefner’s short, intense career.

Hefner’s valedictory album, Dead Media (2001), presented an erratic creative left turn. Largely leaving their guitars in their cases, the band made a bizarre, stuttering bleeping confection on ancient analogue synths, confusing critics and halving their audience.

Charley Stone is an English multi-instrumentalist musician based in London, UK. She has been a notable part of the London indie music scene since the early 1990s.