Celebration Rock Indeed: Japandroids Announce Return Tour, With Two Brooklyn Shows
Back in 2012, Japandroids released Celebration Rock, a high-energy, garage-rock record that surely and steadily made the band a whole lot of fans. Comprised of Vancouver natives Brian King and David Prowse, the group’s follow-up to its 2009 debut, Post-Nothing, was widely lauded, receiving praise from outlets such as Rolling Stone and Pitchfork, with the latter eventually calling it one of the best albums of the decade so far.
In years since, Japandroids fell silent. The band has a Twitter, but has never tweeted. It has a Facebook page, but it was totally dead for quite a while–until this morning. In its first social media post since 2013, the reclusive group announced a return for a 10-date tour, including a pair of shows right here in Brooklyn, at Williamsburg’s Knitting Factory. The shows–on October 28th and 29th–will be $20 to get in the door for general admission if you’re over the age of 21.
Celebration Rock comes with a bit of a personal connection at my end as well. When the album was released in 2012, I was not the debonaire journalist whose words you currently read; I was just an oft-bored college kid, an undeclared major working through my sophomore year at Penn State. Unsure of what I wanted to do, in the moment or in life, I eventually found Celebration Rock and a lot of things shifted perspective. There was a lot of cool music that I began to find on its footsteps that captured me. The raw emotion of Celebration Rock fueled different moods, from running on the treadmill to trudging through the slush, snow, and vicious cold to class. It had a mood. It made me feel. It did something.
It’s unknown whether or not this tour is in support of any type of new project for the group, which was founded in 2008, but we can only hope. One way or another, it’s exciting to have an exciting and unique rock act back playing music. Check out the video for “The House The Heaven Built,” Japandroids’ biggest hit and now a mainstay of sports arenas around the country, below: