M83 tour 2019
Electronic act M83 will be hitting the road this year in support of the new album. The critically acclaimed producer, also known as Anthony Gonzalez, will play a range of concerts across North America, including appearances at Coachella, Sasquatch!, Governors Ball and Firefly. M83 tour begins on the 6th of April at the Civic Theatre in New Orleans, and no supporting acts have been announced so far.
European fans will also get their chance to see the M83 band at several summer festivals this year, including BBK Live Festival in Spain and Melt Festival in Germany. Demand is likely to be high, so check the M83 tour dates schedule below and get your tickets fast.
Check the full list of M83 tour dates in 2019 below. Cannot find M83 concert in your hometown? Well, this is sad. But wait, there are lots of other cool electronic bands on tour!
Over the five years since the release of 2011's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, the M83 band has been relatively quiet. During his time off from creating studio albums, Anthony Gonzalez recorded two soundtrack albums: one for 2013's Oblivion and one for a French film, You and the Night, released in the same year. His work has also appeared in Christopher Nolan's 2014 blockbuster Interstellar. Last year, he released a mixtape: Saturdays = Youth Remixes and B-Sides.
But the M83 band is coming back with a bang. The long-awaited follow up has no title or release date announced as yet, but we know that it's finished and we know that it will be coming in 2016 - and hopefully in time for the M83 tour. According to Gonzalez, he is "very happy" with the album. It's "different", it's "epic", and it's "more fun and fresh" than its predecessor. He has even claimed that it's influenced by '70s and '80s TV shows like Who's the Boss and Punky Brewster, and that it features "unexpected guests". The album is eagerly anticipated both by fans and by the critics who showered previous albums with praise.
Watch M83 perform and you will see a band much like any other - with two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer and a synth player. But the band, in its present-day form, is entirely Anthony Gonzalez' brainchild. He writes all of the music and records all of the instruments by himself (if sometimes aided by his brother Yann). It was formed in 2001 as a partnership between himself and co-founder Nicolas Fromageau in Antibes, France; the name is not some kind of code or French text-speak, but rather the name of a galaxy - and this fascination with science and nature has been a consistent theme in the M83 band's music and aesthetic throughout its existence.
Fromageau left after the release of 2005's Before the Dawn Heals Us to pursue an independent career, but that hasn't slowed down Gonzalez, who has released several albums by himself since. In 2010, Gonzalez decided to up sticks and relocate from the quiet French resort town to the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles, drawn by the city's burgeoning music scene. This change of scenery has influenced not only his touring schedule, but even his approach to writing.
Taking influences from acts as far-ranging as My Bloody Valentine and New Order, Gonzalez has won over fans and critics alike on all of his recent releases. It's a sound that can best be described as a kind of electronic shoegaze: a strange, eclectic formula, but one that seems to have worked successfully so far. His partnership with Fromageau may have broken down in 2005, but he hasn't looked back; each album seems not only to broaden the band's appeal, but also to impress critics even more than the last. Even 2008's Saturdays = Youth, which Gonzalez himself has admitted to looking back on with regret, performed fairly well in most of its reviews.
Gonzalez' most recent offering, Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, more than made up for any shortfall that may have resulted from Saturdays = Youth, though. It's the act's first double album - described by Gonzalez as a "soundtrack to an imaginary movie" with "different ambiances, different atmospheres, different tempos, different orchestrations and different instrumentation". It was also a breakthrough for M83's chart success, peaking at 15 in the US, and was mostly worshipped by critics. Sources of praise for the 74-minute album were its newfound pop sound and aesthetic, and the showmanship in Gonzalez' vocal performance.
Mention M83 to most music fans today and the image invoked in their minds will most likely be of the catchy, yelping hooks of the band's smash hit Midnight City, from the 2011 album Hurry Up, We're Dreaming. The songs Wait and Reunion, from the same album, are also fan favourites; the music videos for each of the three songs form part of a sci-fi-themed trilogy directed by the French production team Fleur and Manu. Other hit songs include Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun and We Own The Sky.
M83 tickets for the current tour are available since January with seats at many venues selling out extremely fast! The band also promise to announce even more live shows a bit later. So stay tuned!