Iconic Canadian rock band ALEXISONFIRE has announced a limited engagement of performances this June. The five members will come together to perform four shows in June at Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall – including three 19+ shows presented by Budweiser’s Discover What’s Brewing series – as well as a special appearance at Montebello Rockfest. Having established a reputation worldwide for their killer live shows, AOF recently surprised fans lucky enough to get tickets to one of four sold-out Moneen concerts in Toronto when they hit the stage for a secret set at Lee’s Palace last month. The set precipitated a string of Australian Alexisonfire headline shows including Unify Gathering 2017. Alexisonfire enjoyed the Aussie tour and recent club play so much, they looked for a hole in their individual schedules to squeeze in some shows of their own. The band eschewed interest from numerous festivals, opting instead to capture the energy and excitement of playing for their rabid fanbase in a smaller, more intimate setting.
Although the five members have not made any plans to reunite in a traditional sense, they remain very close and open to opportunities and holes in their busy schedules that bring them together to perform. Says frontman George Pettit, “We hope we can show up and play in random cities from time to time.” Case in point, on Monday Alexisonfire surprised fans at the Air Canada Centre after headliners Billy Talent invited the band to perform a few AOF songs during their show.
In order to ensure fans under 19 don’t get left out in the cold, the first Toronto date at Danforth Music Hall on June 18 is All Ages. Tickets for all show dates go on sale Friday, March 3 at NOON EST. See below for show dates and links to purchase tickets. These are the only show dates the band will perform this summer.
Hailing from St. Catharines, Alexisonfire rose up out of the Southern Ontario underground in late 2001, to become one of the most successful indie bands in Canada. The band’s success also reached far beyond Canada’s borders. AOF released four hugely successful studio albums, Alexisonfire (2002), Watch Out (2004), Crisis (2006), and Old Crows / Young Cardinals (2009). Crisis debuted at #1 on the Top 200 Soundscan chart (Canada), and Old Crows / Young Cardinals debuted at #2, and charted at #9 on the US Billboard Independent Album chart. Watch Out helped earn the band New Group of the Year at the 2004 JUNO Awards. Their first 3 albums achieved Platinum certification in Canada while Old Crows / Young Cardinals reached Gold certification. The band also topped charts and graced several notable music magazine covers internationally (Kerrang, Blunt, Big Cheese, Canadian Musician, Exclaim!). AOF’s sold-out 10th Year Anniversary Farewell tour in December 2012 touched down on four continents in 24 days, illustrating how meaningful the band still is to their legion of fans around the world.
Alexisonfire will release a new version of Crisis as part of Record Store Day (Canada) on April 27, 2017. Pressed on a white vinyl as a single LP for the first time, the Record Store Day (Canada) release will be hand-numbered out of 1977. Crisis debuted at #1 on the Top 200 SoundScan and is one of the band’s most successful albums with sales topping 130K in Canada alone. The LP hit #5 on Billboard’s Top Heatseekers chart, #18 on the U.S. Nielsen SoundScan Independent Album chart, and made waves worldwide charting in the UK and Australia’s ARIA charts. With songs ranging in subject matter from the Blizzard of 1977 which paralyzed portions of the Niagara and Northern New York region, to disenfranchised workers, the album embodied a much darker theme than previous Alexisonfire recordings which the JUNO-award winning quintet attributed to returning home from traveling around the world with a fresh perspective. The album also marked a much more “rhythmically liberal” process in the studio with AOF stripping everything down to write and record an album that captured the essence of the band’s live sound, without looping or overdubs or layers. For updates and more information, visit Alexisonfire’s official website.
For a list of roughly 150 participating Canadian stores, visit Record Store Day’s official website: http://www.recordstoreday.com/Stores
AOF 2017 SHOW DATES:
June 18 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall (AA) – Ticket Link: http://bit.ly/2mxA0MO
June 19 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall (19+) – Ticket Link: http://bit.ly/2mxA0MO
June 21 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall (19+) – Ticket Link: http://bit.ly/2mxA0MO
June 22 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall (19+) – Ticket Link: http://bit.ly/2mxA0MO
June 24 – Montebello, QC @ Montebello Rockfest (AA) – Ticket Link: http://bit.ly/2mEAZdg
