The Breeders Tour 2014

The 2014 tour by American alternative rock group the Breeders comprised a series of thirteen concerts in central and western United States in September 2014. The Breeders' line-up for their successful 1993 album Last Splash consisted of Josephine Wiggs, Jim Macpherson, Kim Deal, and Kelley Deal; however, Wiggs and Macpherson were not in the band for the group's next albums, Title TK and Mountain Battles, released in 2002 and 2008, respectively. In 2013, the foursome reunited for a tour to commemorate Last Splash's 20th anniversary, and the following year, they began working on new songs together. The band Neutral Milk Hotel invited the Breeders to open for them at a September 18 concert at the Hollywood Bowl. The Breeders decided to go on a tour leading up to this show, and to use the opportunity to practice some of their new compositions.

Between September 2 and September 17, the Breeders performed in eleven cities, including St. Louis, Denver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. Support groups the Funs and the Neptunas opened for them at five and six of these eleven shows, respectively. The Breeders then played at the Hollywood Bowl concert, and wrapped up the tour on September 20 at the Goose Island 312 Urban Block Dance Party event in Chicago. On the tour, the Breeders performed four new songs, as well as the compositions "Off You" and "Safari", and numerous selections from the albums Last Splash and Pod. Among these were "Cannonball", "No Aloha", "Saints", "Divine Hammer", "Doe", and "Iris". The tour received good reviews from critics; appraisal included comments that the performances were rousing, and that the band was as good as—or better than—in its heyday.

Background

In 1993, the Breeders released their second album, Last Splash.^[1][2] At this time, the group’s line-up consisted of sisters Kim and Kelley Deal on guitar and vocals, Josephine Wiggs on bass and vocals, and Jim Macpherson on drums.^[3] Last Splash went silver in the United Kingdom,^[4] gold in Canada,^[5] and platinum in the United States,^[6] and the group toured extensively, including participating in Lollapalooza 1994.^[1] In November 1994, Kelley Deal was arrested on heroin-related charges, and in 1995 Wiggs decided to pursue other musical projects.^[1] Macpherson continued playing with Kim Deal in her side-project group, the Amps, and then in the 1996 incarnation of the Breeders,^[2][7] but quit the band in 1997.^[8] The Breeders’ line-ups for their albums Title TK (2002) and Mountain Battles (2008) included the Deal sisters, Mando Lopez, and Jose Medeles.^[9][10] In 2013, Wiggs and Macpherson rejoined the Deals to tour the 20th anniversary of Last Splash^[11][12]—the LSXX Tour.^[13]

On December 31, 2013, the Breeders performed their final concert on the 60-date tour in Austin, Texas.^[13] The foursome enjoyed the LSXX concerts, and decided that they would like to record new music together.^[11] Throughout 2014, Wiggs traveled from her home in Brooklyn, New York to Dayton, Ohio, which Macpherson and both of the Deals live in or near.^[11][14] The group began practicing new material in Kim Deal’s basement,^[11] including one composition by Wiggs and others by Deal.^[11][15] By August of that year, there were three songs that they could play well, two less so, and others that they had not yet practiced.^[11] Titles of new songs included “Skinhead Number 2”, “Simone”, “All Nerve”, and “Launched”.^[11] The group Neutral Milk Hotel asked the Breeders to open for them at a Hollywood Bowl concert to be held on September 18.^[11][16] The Breeders decided to go on a tour leading up to this concert and to perform some new compositions to prepare for the songs’ eventual recording.^{[11][16][a 1]}

Performances and reception

Stops on the Breeders' 2014 tour included the Showbox in Seattle.^[17]

The September 2014 tour comprised thirteen American dates, all in western and central states.^[13] Support groups included the Funs,^[18][19] the Neptunas,^[17][20] and Kelley Stoltz.^[21] The tour began in early September with dates in St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri, and then continued west to Denver, Salt Lake City, and Garden City.^[13] On September 10, the Breeders started a short Pacific Coast stretch, performing in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco.^{[13][a 2]} These shows were followed by the inland cities Las Vegas and Phoenix, then San Diego, California,^[13] leading up to their concert on September 18 at the Hollywood Bowl with Neutral Milk Hotel and Daniel Johnston.^[22] Following the Hollywood concert, the Breeders finished their tour at the Goose Island 312 Urban Block Dance Party event in Chicago on September 20, with groups such as Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Thao & The Get Down Stay Down.^[23]

In addition to the four new compositions "Simone", "Skinhead Number 2", "All Nerve", and "Launched", the Breeders performed many songs from their albums Pod and Last Splash.^[24][25] These included "Saints", "Hag", "SOS", "New Year", "Cannonball", "No Aloha", and "Divine Hammer" from Last Splash, as well as "Doe", "Limehouse", "Hellbound", and "Iris" from Pod.^[24][26] They also played "Off You" from Title TK and the title track from the Safari EP.^[25][27] Another composition they performed was "Walking with a Killer",^[26][27] which had originally been released—with the B-side "Dirty Hessians"—as the first in a series of solo 7" singles by Kim Deal,^[28][29] and which the Breeders had also played in 2013 on their LSXX Tour.^[11]

The Breeders' performances on their 2014 tour were generally well received by critics. Regarding their September 3 performance in Kansas City, Danny Phillips of Blurt magazine wrote that the Breeders "like wine, seem to improve with age", commenting that "everything [was] perfect" about the show;^[27] The Kansas City Star's Timothy Finn likewise summed the night up as "an evening that exceeded its promise".^[25] Tim Hinely, also of Blurt, wrote that in Denver two nights later, the Breeders did "not [play] a classic set by any stretch, but it was fun and hardly any of the set slipped into boring noodling".^[30] In Portland on September 11, 94/7's Yume Delegato heard the group's performance as "delightfully raw and [having] a great deal of heart" but felt that some of the new songs "fell flat".^[31] Critic Lissa Townsend Rodgers of Vegas Seven magazine praised the band's "knockout punch" performance of the songs "New Year" and the "irresistibly throbbing ... 'Cannonball'" at their Las Vegas concert on September 16;^[24] Leslie Ventura of Las Vegas Weekly also liked the show, and described their overall performance as "decisive".^[26] Critic Alex Packard of Listensd.com, who attended the September 17 concert in San Diego, opined that the Breeders "deliver[ed] the classics like they wrote them yesterday and new material in no less of a moving way".^[32] For their September 18 show at Hollywood Bowl, reviewer Keith Plocek of LA Weekly felt that the group played a set of "solid tunes",^[33] while Consequence of Sound's Philip Cosores rated a few of the songs as "pretty-perfect-sounding renditions", and commented that Kim Deal's "rock and roll soul is still as strong as ever".^[34]

Dates

Notes

Footnotes

References