Buy tickets for Tom Jones at Kingsholm Stadium in Gloucester and secure your place for a warm summer concert of soul, pop and big choruses. Expect a voice that links It's Not Unusual to his later, more reflective career phase and Summer Series guests
Tom Jones brings stadium soul back to Gloucester
Tom Jones performs at Kingsholm Stadium in Gloucester on Sunday, June 28, 2026, with the concert start listed on event pages as 18:00. This is not just another date in the calendar of summer performances, but the return of a singer whose voice has shaped several generations of popular music - from rhythm and blues, soul and pop to gospel-tinged ballads and later, darker interpretations of classic songs.
Kingsholm Stadium is an important part of the story for this performance. Tom Jones already had a sold-out concert there in 2012, and in 2017, in front of more than 17,000 visitors, he once again turned the rugby stadium into an open-air music arena. His return in 2026 comes as part of the Kingsholm Summer Series, a weekend that brings major concerts back to the stadium after a pause since 2019. Ticket sales for this event are under way.
For audiences who know Tom Jones from radio hits, the evening in Gloucester brings an opportunity to hear songs that have long since become part of shared pop culture. For those who have followed his later phase, it is equally interesting to hear how the same voice today moves through slower, more stripped-down and more serious arrangements. It is precisely this combination that makes the concert broader than a nostalgic encounter with the past.
A voice that connects soul, pop, blues and the stadium chorus
Tom Jones began building his career in the mid-1960s, and his first major breakthrough came with the song "It's Not Unusual" in 1965. Since then, his repertoire has expanded in several directions: seductive pop, brass-driven soul, dramatic ballads, dance pop of later decades and interpretations of songs by writers whom, at first glance, we do not associate with his early hits.
His recognizability is not only in the power of his voice. The way he phrases is also important: broad, theatrical, but rarely indifferent. In songs such as "Delilah" and "Green, Green Grass Of Home", the audience often gets a big shared chorus. In "Kiss" and "Sexbomb", the concert takes on the rhythm of a dance hall. In newer performances, especially those connected with albums created with producer Ethan Johns, the same voice takes on a darker color and gives more space to the lyrics.
What the audience might recognize in the program
The exact setlist for Gloucester has not been announced, so it should not be invented. Still, publicly released setlists from his previous performances show the framework within which the Tom Jones concert experience often moves. In recent touring years, a combination of classics, covers and material from the newer phase of his career has regularly appeared.
- "It's Not Unusual" - the song that opened his path toward an international audience.
- "What's New Pussycat?", "Delilah" and "Green, Green Grass Of Home" - titles that carry a strong element of communal singing.
- "Kiss" and "Sexbomb" - the more energetic part of the repertoire, suitable for an open-air stadium evening.
- "I Won't Crumble With You If You Fall", "Talking Reality Television Blues" and "Lazarus Man" - examples of the later phase, more serious in tone and closer to blues, folk and spoken-word expression.
Such a range explains why Tom Jones continues to attract a very broad audience. At the same concert there can be visitors who have followed him since the early singles, those who discovered him through the "Reload" era and collaborations with pop names in the 1990s, as well as younger listeners who came to know him through television appearances or newer albums.
The current phase of the career: more than remembering the hits
An important context for the concert in Gloucester is the album "Surrounded By Time", released on April 23, 2021. That album did not try to reproduce the formula of the early hits, but emphasized the more mature, more reflective side of the performer. His interpretations include songs by Bob Dylan, Todd Snider and other writers, with arrangements that allow roughness, silence and narrative to carry the same weight as major vocal rises.
"Surrounded By Time" reached number one on the British albums chart and brought Tom Jones the record of the oldest male artist to reach the top of that chart with an album of new material. That fact is not only a curiosity. It describes well why his touring presence today is not museum-like. Tom Jones performs as a singer who has a past, but also a living repertoire that is still changing.
That is why the concert at Kingsholm Stadium is also attractive for audiences who are not coming only for the three or four best-known choruses. In his newer performances, one can often hear how the old soul singer moves closer to blues, gospel, country and an art-rock atmosphere, without losing his recognizable directness. It is worth securing tickets in time.
Guests who extend the evening beyond one performer
Kingsholm Summer Series has also announced guests for Tom Jones's performance, including Natalie Imbruglia and Nathan Evans & The Saint PHNX Band. This gives the evening a more festival-like arc, because the program does not rely only on the arrival of the main star, but on gradually warming up the audience through different pop and folk-pop sensibilities.
Natalie Imbruglia brings her own recognizability, especially through the song "Torn", one of the most globally memorable pop singles of the late 1990s. Her connection with Tom Jones also has a discographic context: they collaborated on the 1999 album "Reload", a project that opened a new audience for Jones and showed how well he found his way in duets and a more contemporary pop environment.
Nathan Evans became globally known through the contemporary wave of interest in sea shanty songs, especially with "Wellerman", while The Saint PHNX Band brings Scottish folk-pop energy into the combination. In practice, this means that before the main performance, the audience could get a program that moves from recognizable 1990s pop to a newer, more rhythmic folk sound.
Kingsholm Stadium: a rugby field as a summer concert stage
Kingsholm Stadium is located at Kingsholm Road, Gloucester, GL1 3AX. It is best known as the home of Gloucester Rugby, but for summer concerts it turns into a space in which the stands, pitch and fan zones are used differently than on a sporting day. The stadium capacity in rugby configuration is listed at around 16,000 seats, which places it between a large arena and a space that still retains a feeling of closeness to the stage.
For the concert experience, that is an important difference. Open stadiums can feel enormous and distant, but Kingsholm is a stadium whose edges are close to the pitch. The audience in the stands has the feeling of being part of a shared space, not merely a distant mass. With performers such as Tom Jones, whose performance often rests on contact with the audience, the chorus and a vocal response from the crowd, such a layout can be an advantage.
On the day of the Summer Series, a broader festival framework is also expected, with food and drink offerings and fan zones intended to extend the stay at the stadium beyond the main performance itself. This is especially useful for visitors who are traveling to Gloucester and want to plan the evening as a multi-hour outing, not merely as arriving a few minutes before the first song.
Getting to Gloucester and moving around the stadium
Gloucester is a city in the southwest of England, in the county of Gloucestershire, situated by the River Severn and not far from the Cotswolds and the Forest of Dean areas. For visitors arriving earlier, the city has enough content for a half-day or full-day stay before the concert: the cathedral in the center, the historic docks, Gloucester Quays and museum and hospitality spaces by the water.
For the arrival at Kingsholm itself, it is most practical to plan ahead. Gloucester train station is within walking distance of the stadium, and the stadium pages state about a 15-minute walk or about a 5-minute drive. For arrival by car, orientation toward the postcode GL1 3AX and M5 junction 11 is useful, from which the stadium is listed as approximately a 10-minute drive under usual conditions.
It is important, however, not to count on parking at the stadium itself on concert day. Information for the Kingsholm Summer Series states that there will be no parking at the stadium on the day of the concert and that local partner car parks and city options should be used. For that reason, it is reasonable to arrive earlier, especially if traveling by car or if entry is planned for the period of the largest audience arrival.
Practical notes for visitors
- Check the schedule on the ticket before departure, because different event pages list the program start and performance time with small differences.
- For public transport, plan the walk from the railway station to the stadium, especially if you are traveling after the concert.
- For arrival by car, choose a city or partner car park in advance, because parking at the stadium is not expected on concert day.
- Bear in mind that this is an open-air stadium event, so adjust clothing and arrival time to the weather conditions.
- For assistance at the stadium, look for staff, stewards or the visitor team announced for the Summer Series.
Who this concert is especially attractive for
Tom Jones's concert in Gloucester is not a narrowly genre-defined event. His audience naturally extends across several generations and tastes. Lovers of classic pop will get songs that have functioned for decades as radio and concert standards. Fans of soul and blues will hear a singer who has always had a rhythm and blues core, even when performing within the most commercial pop framework. Audiences who value the later, more stripped-down phase can expect a different tension: a voice that no longer has to prove its strength with every chorus, but uses it selectively.
Kingsholm as a location further changes the profile of the evening. This is not an intimate theatre performance in which every nuance is heard in silence, but it is not an anonymous mega-arena either. It is a stadium concert with a summer character, space for communal singing and a program broad enough for the evening to have the rhythm of a festival. Tickets for this event are in demand.
Gloucester before and after the concert
Visitors coming from other cities can experience Gloucester as a practical concert base, but also as a city with its own historical layers. Gloucester Cathedral is located in the city center and easily fits into an earlier arrival, while Gloucester Docks are described as one of the most inland port spaces in the country, with Victorian buildings, museums, shops and cafés by the water.
That combination suits a concert weekend well: an early afternoon in the cathedral or docks, then heading toward Kingsholm, and in the evening a great voice moving from ballads into dance choruses. For audiences traveling, it is worth planning accommodation and the return earlier, because larger concerts change the rhythm of traffic around the stadium and the railway station.
In a musical sense, Gloucester is getting an evening that connects a local stadium, international pop history and a program with several generational entry points. Tom Jones is a performer whose concerts often begin as recognition of hits and end as a reminder that his true instrument - voice, phrasing and a feel for the song - is still the reason the audience comes.
Sources:
- Tom Jones web - biography, touring context, the album "Surrounded By Time" and the best-known titles from his career.
- Kingsholm Stadium - announcement of Tom Jones's concert, earlier performances at Kingsholm, the return of the Summer Series and the basic framework of the event.
- Gloucester Rugby - information about the Kingsholm Summer Series, concert guests, fan zones and practical instructions for visitors.
- Official Charts - data about the album "Surrounded By Time" and the British chart record.
- Gloucestershire Live - context of the guests Natalie Imbruglia, Nathan Evans & The Saint PHNX Band and the return of concerts to the stadium.
- Provided event data - date, time and location of the concert.
- Concert Archives and Setlist.fm - publicly published setlists from previous performances, used only as a framework for describing the possible range of the repertoire.
- Visit Gloucester and Gloucester Cathedral - information about the city, docks, cathedral and moving around the center.