The Replacements — namely frontman Paul Westerberg and bassist Tommy Stinson — will reunite on stage for the first time in 22 years later this summer to headline Riot Fest in Toronto, Denver and Chicago, site of the band’s unceremonious final performance in Grant Park on July 4, 1991.
As we noted over the weekend, the former members of R.E.M. seemed to go out of their way to avoid staging a full reunion Saturday night at Peter Buck’s wedding in Portland, Ore., as all four ex-bandmates took the stage to perform at the Wonder Ballroom at one point or another — just never all at once.
There very well could have been a full-fledged R.E.M. reunion in Portland, Ore., on Saturday night as all four members of the defunct college-rock superstars performed after Peter Buck’s wedding. But, by all appearances, they managed to avoid such headlines, just barely, by not actually sharing the stage together.
The Dream Syndicate opens its second run of European reunion concerts tomorrow, but bandleader Steve Wynn already is thinking bigger, raising the possibility of recording new music with his old band with a very specific goal in mind: making the “missing” album to bridge the gap between its first two records.
Sad Lovers & Giants — who’ve earned a strong cult following despite having broken up and re-formed multiple times since debuting in the early ’80s — are in the studio recording what could be their first album in more than a decade, with enough songs currently in the works to comprise “70 percent of an album.”
The Breeders brought their Last Splash 20th anniversary tour to Boston for a homecoming gig Thursday night, but ended up celebrating an earlier era as co-founder Tanya Donelly re-joined Kim Deal and Co. onstage for a pair of numbers, including a giddy, laugh-filled cover of The Beatles’ “Happiness is a Warm Gun.”
Last fall, Kitchens of Distinction’s Patrick Fitzgerald and Julian Swales reunited for the first time since the dream-pop act folded in 1996, but they weren’t sure what to call the project. But now it’s official: With Dan Goodwin back on board, too, Kitchens of Distinction have just finished their first new album in 19 years.
The annual All Tomorrow’s Parties holiday festival in Camber Sands, England, will come to an end later this year with one final two-weekend extravaganza, with the first weekend headlined by Television performing Marquee Moon in full and the second weekend both curated and headlined by the reunited Loop.
The Call — best known for ’80s radio hits “The Walls Came Down,” “I Still Believe” and “Let the Day Begin” — reunited for the band’s first concerts in 20 years over the past two nights, performing in San Francisco and Los Angeles with Robert Levon Been of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club filling in for his late father.
The reunited Violent Femmes — Gordon Gano, Victor DeLorenzo and Brian Ritchie — played their first show in five years Saturday when the band used its Coachella slot to perform its beloved 1983 debut album front-to-back. You can now watch the full set via this capture of the festival’s webcast.
The reunion of The Three O’Clock hit national TV last night, as the Paisley Underground favorites stopped by “Conan” to perform their 1982 classic “With a Cantaloupe Girlfriend” in advance of the band’s appearances at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival this weekend and next.
The Three O’Clock will celebrate their current reunion with a brand-new compilation album this summer — The Hidden World Revealed, featuring 10 previously unreleased tracks — and with a performance on “Conan” tonight ahead of the band’s appearances at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival.
As promised, reunited 2 Tone-era ska giants The Specials are returning to North America this summer for the second leg of their 2013 tour, following up their March dates at South By Southwest and in the western part of the country with at least eight concerts in Canada and on the East Coast of the United States.
Eight months after first announcing plans for a new album, The Mission have convened in England to begin recording with producer David M. Allen — who has worked with The Cure, Depeche Mode, Wire and The Sisters of Mercy — and this week announced a new record deal and plans to release the album in September.
The upcoming reunion of The Call — featuring the band’s original members plus Robert Levon Been of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club filling in for his late father Michael Been — will be filmed and recorded for a live DVD, CD and vinyl release, and the band has just launched a Pledge Music campaign to help fund the project.
The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for the late frontman Stuart Adamson and the recent addition of original Simple Minds bassist Derek Forbes — will tour the U.S. this June in support of the forthcoming ‘The Journey,’ with at least six dates on the two coasts already confirmed.
Last month, Morrissey announced that David Bowie put the kibosh on the sleeve of his “Last of the Famous International Playboys” reissue, on which Moz had hoped to use a “previously unseen private photograph” of himself with Bowie taken in 1992. Seems Rick Astley is more willing — or just lacks the power to stop it.
True to its name, the 2013 installment of NYC Popfest will be an indie-pop lover’s dream, as the organizers have pulled off a booking coup, landing rare American performances by C86 veterans Close Lobsters and The Wolfhounds as well as U.K. post-punk act The Monochrome Set and an appearance by The Bats.
Paisley Underground standard-bearers The Three O’Clock will prepare for their Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival reunion this April with a far more intimate warm-up gig in Pomona, Calif. — part of the mammoth music fest’s slate Los Angeles-area concerts taking place before and between the event’s twin weekends.
