Arcade Fire Tour & LP

ARCADE FIRE WE NEW ALBUM OUT NOW AND WORLD TOUR ANNOUNCED

Produced by Nigel Godrich, Win & Regine, and recorded in multiple locales including New Orleans, El Paso and Mount Desert Island, WE paradoxically distills ‘the longest we’ve ever spent writing, uninterrupted, probably ever’ (per the band’s Win Butler) into a concise 40 minute epic - one as much about the forces that threaten to pull us away from the people we love, as it is inspired by the urgent need to overcome them. The album’s cathartic journey follows a definable arc from darkness into light over the course of seven songs divided into two distinct sides - Side I channeling the fear and loneliness of isolation, and Side ‘WE’ expressing the joy and power of reconnection. On the album’s cover, a photograph of a human eye by the artist JR evokes Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. This stunning image - embellished by the distinctive airbrush colour tinting of Terry Pastor (utilising the same physical technique he employed on David Bowie’s iconic ‘Hunky Dory’ and ‘Ziggy Stardust’ covers) - is the visual expression of WE.

UK AND EUROPEAN DATES TO FEATURE SPECIAL GUEST FEIST

Photo Credit: María José Govea

Following the universally acclaimed reception to singles ‘The Lightning I, II’ and ‘Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)’, Arcade Fire’s “” (The New Yorker) WE is out now in its entirety via Columbia Records.

WE’s release coincides with the announcement of Arcade Fire’s autumn world tour. In the wake of surprise underplays including New Orleans’ Toulouse Theatre, New York’s Bowery Ballroom, Coachella’s Mojave Tent, and a triumphant visit to the UK with the reopening of iconic London venue KOKO, the WE world tour will see the return of the full production Arcade Fire “must-see live act” (Variety) experience to global stages, launching in Dublin on Tuesday, 30th August and running through 1st December in Toronto. The UK leg of the WE tour - featuring special guest Feist - will kick off in Birmingham on 2nd September ahead of shows in Manchester, Glasgow and London’s O2 Arena. North America will be treated to very special guest Beck playing a nightly acoustic set, starting 28th October in Washington D.C.

Tickets for all tour dates are on sale now. Arcade Fire has partnered with PLUS1 (http://www.plus1.org) so that $1/£1/€1 per ticket goes to KANPE (http://www.kanpe.org), and their work bringing support to the most vulnerable communities in Haiti.

https://af.lnk.to/WE-CDAW

For tickets and further information, visit https://www.arcadefire.com/

Photo Credit: Leonardo Samrani

UK & EUROPE Tour Dates 2022

30 Aug - Dublin, IE - 3Arena *
2 Sept - Birmingham, UK - Utilita Arena Birmingham *
3 Sept - Manchester, UK - AO Arena *
5 Sept - Glasgow, UK - OVO Hydro *
8 Sept - London, UK - O2 Arena *
11 Sept - Lille, FR - Zenith *
12 Sept - Antwerp, BE - Sportpaleis *
14 Sept - Cologne, DE - Lanxess Arena *
15 Sept- Paris, FR - Accor Arena *
17 Sept - Milan, IT - Mediolanum Forum *
18 Sept - Munich, DE - Olympiahalle *
21 Sept - Madrid, ES - WiZink Center *
22 Sept - Lisbon, PT - Campo Pequeno *
23 Sept - Lisbon, PT - Campo Pequeno *
25 Sept - Bordeaux, FR - Arkea Arena *
26 Sept - Nantes, FR - Zenith *
28 Sept - Amsterdam, NL - Ziggo Dome *
29 Sept - Berlin, DE - Mercedes Benz Arena *
1 Oct - Warsaw, PL - Torwar *

* with special guest Feist

Photo Credit: Tammy Lo

Biography

Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie rock band, consisting of husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, alongside Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury and Jeremy Gara. The band’s current touring line-up also includes former core member Sarah Neufeld and multi-instrumentalists Paul Beaubrun, Dan Boeckner and Eric Heigle. Each of the band’s studio albums features contributions from composer and violinist Owen Pallett. The band formerly featured Win’s younger brother Will Butler, who departed in 2021 after eighteen years.

Founded in 2001 by friends and classmates Butler and Josh Deu, the band came to prominence in 2004 with the release of their critically acclaimed debut album Funeral. Their second studio album, Neon Bible, won them the 2008 Meteor Music Award for Best International Album and the 2008 Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year. Their third studio album, The Suburbs, was released in 2010 to critical acclaim and commercial success. It received many accolades, including the 2011 Grammy for Album of the Year, the 2011 Juno Award for Album of the Year and the 2011 Brit Award for Best International Album. In 2013, Arcade Fire released their fourth album, Reflektor, and scored the feature film Her, for which band members Will Butler and Owen Pallett were nominated in the Best Original Score category at the 86th Academy Awards. In 2017, the band released their fifth studio album Everything Now.

All the band’s studio albums have received nominations for Best Alternative Music Album at the Grammys. Funeral is widely considered by music critics to be one of the greatest albums of the 2000s. The band’s work has also been named three times as a shortlist nominee for the Polaris Music Prize: in 2007 for Neon Bible, in 2011 for The Suburbs and in 2014 for Reflektor.

The band has been described as indie rock, art rock, dance-rock, and baroque pop. They play guitar, drums, bass guitar, piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, xylophone, glockenspiel, keyboard, synthesizer, French horn, accordion, harp, mandolin and hurdy-gurdy, and take most of these instruments on tour; the multi-instrumentalist band members switch duties throughout shows.