Pete McKee’s live tour, ‘The Boy With a Leg Named Brian’, has been forced to cancel its Liverpool date two weeks ahead of the event.
The event was due to run on the 16th of May in District, a venue in the Baltic Triangle.
McKee is a renowned artist who has created artwork for a host of musicians, including Noel Gallagher and Arctic Monkeys.
A statement released by Pete’s team yesterday explained that their planned shows in Liverpool and Southampton have been cancelled due to them no longer being financially viable.
Pete’s team expressed their regret for the cancellation in a social media post on Facebook, in which they stated a lack of ticket sales as the primary reason.
This highlights a key theme within the tour, which is the difficulty of supporting grassroots venues.
Regarding the Liverpool date, McKee said: ‘Grassroots music venues like this are vital for bands like mine to perform to new audiences.’
The exhibition, which has taken on over 130,000 visitors, is split into four distinct sections which showcase the stages of his life, from Pete’s earliest memories, to the loss of his mother.
The tour features multiple musical acts, including a set from Pete’s own group, ‘The Everly Pregnant Brothers’, who are a comedic ukulele band.
@luke_kavanagh_jou Pete McKee’s tour, ‘The Boy With a Leg Named Brian’ has unfortunately cancelled the Liverpool date – read more on mersey news live
The closure of the 35-year-old club highlights the degree of the struggle that venues are facing not only in Liverpool, but across the country.
At least 30 grassroots music venues have closed in the UK in the past year, according to the Music Venue Trust’s Annual Report of 2025.
This report showed that 48% of music venues that opened in 2025 had closed their doors permanently as of early 2026.
It also revealed that 53% of UK music venues showed no profit in 2025.
(Featured image credit – Pete McKee)
