The very special reason behind Dave Stewart's homecoming gigs

On a long trip home last summer, Dave Stewart went back to the street where it all began.

It was rather serendipitous that he managed to find an Air BnB in Barnard Street, Barnes, the very street he lived until he was nine-years-old.

Although Dave is constantly creating, it was a holiday home that proved deeply inspirational and spawned new album track, The House Where I Was Born, a personal love letter to Sunderland, which Dave wrote in 2025 while looking out from the window of Number 9 towards Number 10 where a young Dave lived.

With the lyrics referencing the street, Penshaw Hill and his late parents, it’s a song that captures a powerful connection between memory, place and identity.

Speaking about the full circle moment, Dave told the Echo: “It’s like a Coronation Street-style street, so I was looking right into the window of the room where until I was nine-years-old, me and my brother slept.”

The Grammy, Brit and Ivor Novello Award-winner is now back in Sunderland and returning to what he describes as one of his favourite venues to play, The Fire Station, this week.

He’ll be taking to the stage on Monday, September 14, and Tuesday, September 15, to perform The Way It Was Back Then, his deeply personal new album.

Released on September 18, the album is inspired by Dave’s formative years growing up in Sunderland and his journey to worldwide success as the co-founder of the globally celebrated duo Eurythmics.

For these special Sunderland performances, audiences will be able to hear music from the forthcoming album for the first time ever, alongside highlights from Dave’s extraordinary career, in an intimate setting that allows the stories behind the songs to take centre stage.

Speaking about the album, Dave said: “I go through a couple of decades in the album. There’s a couple specifically about Sunderland and I mention references like Penshaw Hill. I also mention a singer called Jimmy Mac, there’s lots of references all over the place.

“And some are about the ‘70s and ‘80s. The interesting thing is in the ‘90s I had an apartment in Covent Garden and I have an app coming out and it’s a recreation of my apartment and you can click on certain flickering TVs and see images and watch films and hear the new album. I can also live stream backstage at the Fire Station gig, it’s very unique.”

At the home city gig, Dave will be joined on stage by Sunderland musicians - Barry Hyde as musical director and keyboards, Hannah Smith on background vocals and keyboards, Isabel Johnson on background vocals and Katie Anderson on bass guitar - as well as Dave’s son Sam on guitars and Jesse Samler on drums.

Dave says The Fire Station has become a personal favourite to play.

“Everything about it is really well run,” he said. “The whole team there are brilliant and everything about it is classy. It’s a really great thing to have in Sunderland.”

Dave says he really enjoys being able to chat to a Mackem audiences who understand his references to High Street Baths and Penny Dips.

Other favourite haunts when Black Cat fan Dave is back on home turf include Fausto, Ember, martinis at Vito’s and of course the hallowed Stadium of Light, with Dave and his son attending the Arsenal match - and he says he wants to try and check out the Sunday dinners and proper gravy at The Peacock.

“I like going to Barnes School, I’ve been back a few times,” he said. “I like going to the places I used to knock about because it’s inspirational, like Backhouse Park and Barnes Park. In fact, the album cover is me playing, kicking a ball up in the air. I’m about five-years-old and it’s at the bottom of Barnes Park where there’s a bit of grass.

“My dad was filming me with an 8mm cine camera and it’s one of the stills. I always wanted to play football.”

He added: “I have great memories of when I was in junior school and going to see the ships being built - it was so exciting as a kid.

“I was actually a very peculiar kid growing up. When you’re a kid you don’t know that in a way you are ‘different’, so I would want to do things that were really nuts and my parents were like ‘what on earth’. And it turned out, in the end, I was a songwriter.”

And what a songwriter he is.

*Dave Stewart: The Way It Was Back Then is at The Fire Station on September 14 & 15. Tickets from firestation.org