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In the six months since The War on Drugs released their critically acclaimed Wagonwheel Blues, a subtly haunting slab full of hooks and undertows full of warped presence, the band has spent the bulk of their time overseas. Beginning December 9 in Pontiac, Michigan, the group will hit NYC, Rock Island, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Bloomington and their hometown of Philadelphia with a handful of dates.
Uncut's Alan Jones, one of the wisest voices in music journalism, wrote of a recent War On Drugs performance:
“I'm wholly glad they're here tonight, because what their opening set, a frantic 30 minutes or so, packed from floor to ceiling with moments of startling rapture and abandoned mayhem, is as good as anything I've seen all year. You may have read in reviews of their debut album, Wagonwheel Blues, that WOD's music occupies an interface between the classic American songwriting of Dylan, Springsteen and Tom Petty and the sonic adventures of The Velvet Underground, say, or My Bloody Valentine. It's a notion you may briefly have entertained and then dismissed without hearing the album as surely fanciful. The thing is, the description - especially when you hear them live - isn't at all far-fetched, begins in fact to feel like it actually undersells a lot of the amazing things they get up to and the fearsome noise of which they are capable, breathtakingly exciting aural landscapes wrought from nothing more apparently than a Rickenbacker, a drummer with the dynamic whack of the young Mitch Mitchell, an acoustic guitar and what looks like an array of wired-up kitchen utensils one of the band must have found at the back of someone's garage."
Yeah, what he said. Consider this your heads-up, children.
The War On Drugs Tour Dates
12/09/08 Pontiac, MI - The Pike Room at The Crofoot
12/10/08 Rock Island, IL - Huckleberry's Pizza Parlor
12/11/08 Chicago, IL - Schuba's
12/12/08 Bloomington, IN - Bear's Place
12/13/08 Pittsburgh, PA - Brillobox
12/14/08 Brooklyn, NY - Union Hall
12/15/08 New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
12/18/08 Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's
Sample The War On Drugs live in London earlier this year. Don't worry, the first taste is free.
