GEORDIE guitar hero Chris Rea is one of the UK’s foremost singers and songwriters and is set to return to Bournemouth when he plays the BIC later this year as part of a full tour of the UK.

With a career that spans over 30 years, both The Road to Hell in 1989 and Auberge in 1991 debuted at No 1 in the UK, cementing his position as arguably one of the country’s finest musicians and songwriters.

Tickets are on sale now for his Bournemouth date on Friday, December 12.

The tour will be in support of a new album which will be released in September.

A retrospective album, Still So Far To Go – The Best of Chris Rea, debuted at number 9 in the UK charts in 2009.

More recently, he has achieved considerable success with the independent albums Dancing Down The Stony Road (2002), Blue Guitars (2005) released on his own Jazee Blue Label and Santo Spirito Blues (2011) which was released on Warner.

After battling with health problems that came close to killing him, the guitar legend is hellbent on touring and the Bournemouth audience can expect to hear the countless hits including Fool (If You Think It’s Over), On The Beach, Let’s Dance, Josephine, Stainsby Girls and many more from Chris’s long and distinguished career in the music business.