The Strokes Announce Their First Performance for 2019 With More Dates to Come!

 

*Header picture by Pooneh Ghana*

By: Sun Noor

After completing their few shows mainly consisting of headlining South American festival slots last year, The Strokes have finally announced their first performance in over a year! The band is due to play a headlining set at Spain’s Bilbao BBk festival next year alongside acts such as Rosalía, Weezer and Thom Yorke.

 

For Strokes fans, rumors regarding the band’s potential return always seem to circulate each year if not multiple times. Whether it be misleading and false claims from media outlets within predictions for tour dates or speculations regarding the release date for their fourth coming record, (that has been “in the works” according to various “sources”) the probability of the band’s comeback never misses a headline. In fact, those same rumors managed to lead to another “Strhoax” this summer, when a misinterpreted flyer for a show at the Dingwall’s club in London surfaced around several media outlets including NME, throwing most fans off since the band’s guitarist, Albert Hammond Jr was in Belgium for a festival set on the same day. The rumor began to spread shortly after the Camden venue’s twitter alluded to a secret show taking place the following evening. Now the flyer for the show did not mention The Strokes at all but instead promoted a gig for a banned called Venison, the name in which the outfit played under for their secret comeback London show back in 2010. The band swore to never use that alias ever again following that show. Nevertheless, the fact that the name managed to reappear in their signature font and the flyer described the show as “a one off shoot” gig leading many to believe that the band was due to make their highly anticipated comeback at the 500 capacity venue. Many even began to queue up hours before the show or even begin their commute to London. The venue managed to shut down the rumor stating that someone on their end spread false information and that there was no gig scheduled for that night which automatically put an end to the disaster while leaving the ones who fell for this taken for fools.

This time around, The Strokes not only plan on only playing a handful of shows but to make their global comeback. A recent press release mentioned more shows to come after the Bilbao announcement. This could mean many things including the release of their forthcoming record that has been in the works. The five piece are definitely no strangers when it comes to festival headline slots but it has been a while since they hit the road for a proper world tour. In fact, it has been nearly 13 years since the five piece played their last Montreal show at CEPSUM. A lot has obviously changed within the band during that time period, meaning it would be interesting to see the band embark on a world tour  since its been a while since The Strokes have at least mapped out various North American cities.

 

Click here to check out all updates from The Strokes and the their side projects.

 

Watch a clip from The band’s Lollapalooza Chile performance last year below: