Tinariwen

Tinariwen bring the electric pulse of the Sahara to O2 Ritz Manchester on 22 May 2026. Pioneers of the desert blues they call assuf, the Tuareg collective builds songs on interlaced guitars, circular riffs and a steady, loping groove. Their lyrics, sung mainly in Tamasheq, speak of freedom, exile and the vastness of the desert, carried by rough-edged voices and call-and-response lines that pull the audience into the flow. Formed by musicians who lived through the Tuareg rebellion of the 1990s, the group swapped the campfire and the battlefield for the stage without losing the grit of their stories. Live, the setup is stripped and precise: twanging electrics in pentatonic conversations, handclaps and sparse percussion, harmonies that lean into melancholy before kicking up dust. It’s music that travels light but runs deep, rooted in tradition and plugged into the present, with each piece stretching into a groove that invites you to settle into its rhythm and follow the horizon.