The Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire has finally announced new tour dates for 2016, which include a few European festival dates as well as a benefit concert this February in Montreal to show support for Haiti. The band will partner with KANPE for the concert, a charity for Haiti co-founded by Régine Chassagne, one of the band members. The band will headline Portugal’s NOS Alive Festival in July of this year as well as the Bilbao BBK Live Festival in Spain during the same weekend.
These will be the band’s first live tour dates since their tour in 2014, when they took time off to work on solo projects as well as debut their documentary The Reflektor Tapes. The band’s tour announcement is received with much enthusiasm, as Arcade Fire put on a show like no one else. Earlier this month, the band came together to honor David Bowie with a memorial parade in New Orleans called “Pretty Things: A Second Line for Bowie.” Arcade Fire and David Bowie had collaborated many times together in the past, and one of Bowie’s last live performances was actually with Arcade Fire in September of 2005.
In October of 2013, Arcade Fire released their fourth studio album Reflektor, which received high praise from critics. This past year, the band released The Reflektor Tapes film about the making of their Reflektor album. The documentary premiered in September at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Before showing the film, band members came onstage to briefly explain what the film was about, then returned to the stage after premiering the film to hold a Q&A session.
Around the time of the premiere of their documentary, Arcade Fire also released two new songs for the special edition of their Reflektor album: “Get Right” and “Crucified Again.” The first song was actually featured in the documentary, but showed that the two songs that didn’t make the cut were more created to get the crowd pumped for the next song, rather than listening material.