In a trainwreck that just keeps getting worse, Mike Joyce today announced that he, too, will not take part in the Classically Smiths live shows he began teasing last week, saying he’d been barred from revealing Andy Rourke wouldn’t be taking part when the project was announced Monday.
After cryptic hints Friday, the cat’s now out of the bag: The Smiths’ Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce, plus “fifth member” Craig Gannon, will perform the band’s beloved songs backed by a full orchestra in the U.K. this summer, the Manchester Evening News reported today. No dates have yet been announced.
It appears that Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke, the rhythm section of The Smiths, are planning something — a concert? a full tour? — this year with Craig Gannon, the onetime Aztec Camera member who toured with The Smiths as a second guitarist toward the end of the band’s life.
Three-quarters of R.E.M. — Peter Buck, Mike Mills and drummer-turned-farmer Bill Berry — reunited onstage tonight in Portland, Ore., at the second of two benefit concerts for Scott McCaughey, the longtime R.E.M. sideman who suffered a stroke in November. See video from the reunion performances here.
The Stray Cats, the high-octane rockabilly trio that became an unlikely New Wave-era breakout in the early 1980s, will reunite for the first time in nine years this April to perform at the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend, guitarist/frontman Brian Setzer announced this week. The band will play on April 21.
As promised, Paisley Underground-era rockers The Dream Syndicate last night reunited onstage in Los Angeles with former bandmate Kendra Smith, who left the group after playing bass and singing on its acclaimed 1982 debut The Days of Wine and Roses. Watch the decades-in-the-making performance here.
Reunited Paisley Underground-era rockers The Dream Syndicate today announced they’ll be joined onstage “for a few songs” at two California shows next week by former bandmate Kendra Smith, who played bass and sang on the band’s 1982 debut The Days of Wine and Roses. She’ll play with the band in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The The’s highly anticipated 2018 return continues to grow, with the announcement this week that Matt Johnson and Co. will perform at the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin, Ireland, on July 7 — following a previously announced festival date in Denmark and three London dates in June. Tickets go on sale next week.
The original lineup of Microdisney will reunite next June after 30 years apart for a one-off performance of their 1985 album The Clock Comes Down the Stairs, considered to be among the greatest Irish albums ever made, at Dublin’s National Concert Hall. The band will play on June 2.
The reunited Norwegian pop trio a-ha has begun rolling out summer 2018 tour dates, including a half-dozen shows in the U.K. that will find the group playing football stadiums and cricket grounds with all-star synthpop support from OMD and Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins. See full dates here.
Matt Johnson continues to slowly expand the much-anticipated live return of The The next year, today announcing the group will headline Festival No. 6 in Portmeirion, a booking that’s being billed as the band’s only confirmed U.K. date outside London. See full dates here.
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