Waves of excitement shook the core of the Academy’s membership when the New Pornographers announced a tour to promote the release of “Challengers” on August the 28th, beginning with a three night stand, which were sold out weeks in advance, in different cosy venues through the UK capital, before their appearance at this year’s Glastonbury.
Even the president of the Academy had to resort to unusual measures not to miss the event, going undercover and becoming a “Friend of” the combo’s record label, while helping to collect email addresses for their mailing list. The effort was worth it. Our favourite Canadian indie supergroup gave a fantastic show, covering practically all their career’s highlights, from “Mass Romantic” to “Sing Me Spanish Techno”, interlaced with most of the new album. With a similar line-up than last time they played over, Neko Case and Dan Bejar got their own solo schedules and don’t tour with the band, but Katherin Calder from Immaculate Machine provided the female vocal parts with total brilliance.
Listen to new single “My Rights Versus Yours”
Listen to new album track “Myriad Harbour”
The young Swedish band “Envelopes” were in charge of the support with their juvenile and terribly effective pop punk tunes.
The first reaction to the songs in the follow-up to 2005’s album of the year nominee “Twin Cinema” indicates that the Canadians could repeat, if not improve on the success they achieved then, when they won the Rober for Best rock act of the year, and they were also favourites in the Band and Album of the year categories, among others, losing to Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire respectively.
Carl Newman, the formation’s leading member, joked and talked to an ecstatic audience about the courage to play a set in which half of it is new material. It also talked about Devo, who would play live the following day at the Royal Festival Hall, after a seventeen year hiatus as part of the Jarvis Cocker curated Meltdown festival, and the band started the first notes of “Whip It”; later on led by drummer Kurt Dahle, they would do the same with the Johnny Cash classic “Walk The Line”. After an hour of main set the pornos came back to play a generous encore comprising the band’s rockier moments, allowing the audience to request their favourites. In total, an hour and a half of pure power pop bliss and one of the gigs with best vibes we can recall for a long time.
“Challengers” is the subject of a buy early online promotion in the US, details as follows:
Challengers: Executive Edition (list price $19.99)
* You Get It All + an exclusive, limited edition, CD/CD-R Box Set.
*Full Album Stream (available within days of your purchase)
*The Challengers Box-Set A very limited edition Treasury of New Pornography available only to Executive members. Includes three bonus CD-Rs, designed in a deluxe box set package bonus discs.Disc One: B-Sides, Demos and Alternate MixesDisc Two: The New Pornographers “Live From The Future”
Disc Three: Videos, photos and artwork(note: you will download all of this material digitally as part of Buy Early Get Now, so some-assembly is required as some of these recordings haven’t even happened yet.)
*Advance notice and exclusive ticket buying links for upcoming New Pornographers dates
*Anything extra that we can scheme up between now and the end of the world.
Challengers: The Standard (Cheapskate) Edition (list price 14.99)
Everything except the box set, the live disc, videos, photos and artwork.
*Full Album Stream Listen to all of Challengers more than 2 months ahead of release
*3 previously unreleased B-Sides
*Advance notice and exclusive ticket buy links for upcoming New Pornographers dates