Elvis Costello & The Imposters and Blondie will co-headline a coast-to-coast tour this summer. Produced by Live Nation, the 13-city tour will kick off July 20th in Bethel, NY at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts and make stops in Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and more, before wrapping August 10th in Seattle, WA.
Artist fan club presale tickets will be available starting today at 12pm local time. Tickets will go on sale to the general public beginning Saturday, April 6th at 10am local time at LiveNation.com.
Elvis Costello and Blondie shared spots near the top of the UK Singles Chart 40 years ago when Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass” sat neck-and-neck alongside Elvis Costello & The Attraction’s “Oliver’s Army” in the company of The Bee Gees, Gloria Gaynor and ABBA. The same week, Blondie’s seminal album Parallel Lines reached #1 on the Album Chart while Costello’s Armed Forces landed at #3.
Elvis Costello & The Imposters’ last tour in late 2018 found the combo reaching new live performance peaks. The band “came out swinging” (Star Tribune) in Minneapolis, were “unstoppable” in Anaheim (OC Register) and played an “epic and euphoric” (Variety) show in LA that even at nearly three hours “[left] ‘em wanting more.” The Imposters are: Steve Nieve (keyboards), Davey Faragher (bass) and Pete Thomas (drums).
In 2017, Blondie hit the road in support of their most collaborative album yet, Pollinator (BMG). Their spectacular live shows drew acclaim for their “flair and precision” (Rolling Stone), while being called “formidable” (LA Weekly) and “artful, rocking” (City Pages). Pollinator was praised by the likes of New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork and many more for its dynamic blend of Blondie’s trailblazing sound and new influences from some of modern music’s greatest innovators including Sia, Dev Hynes, Charli XCX, Dave Sitek, Joan Jett, and more. It features the euphoric disco-infused single “Fun,” the propulsive 80s-esque anthem “Long Time,” and the irreverent “Doom or Destiny.”
Elvis Costello’s wide-ranging recording career began in 1977 with the release of My Aim Is True in a catalogue that include such diverse highlights as This Year’s Model, Get Happy, Imperial Bedroom, King Of America, Blood & Chocolate, The Juliet Letters with the Brodsky Quartet, The River In Reverse with Allen Toussaint and Wise Up Ghost with The Roots.
The 1998 release, Painted From Memory contained the first of more than thirty songs composed with Burt Bacharach, while the 2017 box-set re-issue of Paul McCartney’s Flowers In The Dirt includes 15 demo duet recordings made by McCartney and Costello prior to the release of the albums Spike and Flowers In The Dirt, on which his co-written hit singles, “Veronica” and “My Brave Face,” were first released.
Costello previously appeared alongside Deborah Harry with composer/poet Roy Nathanson and the Jazz Passengers both in concert and on the recordings “Fire At Keaton’s Bar and Grill” and “Individually Twisted” in the 90s.
Elvis Costello & The Imposters’ widely renowned Look Now was released by Concord Records in 2018 and of which Variety said, “It’s so funny to be seeing him, after all this time, making a great cake of an album that doesn’t really sound that much like any of the 30 before it.” The catalogue will soon include the E.P., Purse, containing songwriting collaborations with Burt Bacharach and Paul McCartney and musical settings of lyrics by Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan.
Since the release of their self-titled debut album in 1976, Blondie has brought the worlds of rock, punk, disco and ska together and racked up four indelible Billboard Hot 100 #1 hits – “Heart of Glass,” “Call Me,” “The Tide Is High” and “Rapture ” – as well as six #1s on the UK Singles Chart including “Maria,” “Sunday Girl,” and “Atomic.” Debbie Harry – genre-spanning visionary, complex songstress, incandescent front woman and style icon – and the band’s boundary-pushing pop have shaped the look and sound of many chart-topping female artists who have followed and have made Blondie widely recognized as one of the most influential bands of our time. Debbie will reflect on this and more in her highly anticipated memoir out later this year. Blondie’s Chris Stein recently released a photo book of his own entitled Point of View: Me, New York City, and The Punk Scene, following his successful first photo book, Negative: Me, Blondie, and the Advent of Punk. Selected as one of Amazon’s best photo books of 2018, Point of View showcases Chris’ brilliance as a photographer and documentarian, chronicling his life among his punk and new-wave peers and the downtown New York City scene in the 1970s through his insider lens.
Elvis Costello, Pete Thomas and Steve Nieve are all members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Elvis Costello is an Oscar-nominated and BAFTA and Grammy award-winning composer and member of the Songwriters Hall Of Fame. Costello has received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from both the University of Liverpool and the New England Conservatory. Costello’s unconventional memoir, Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink, was published by Blue Rider/Penguin in 2015. The New York Times review began, “Songs can be many things,” Elvis Costello writes in his new autobiography: “an education, a seduction, some solace in heartache, a valve for anger, a passport, your undoing, or even a lottery ticket. Mr. Costello’s book, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, manages to be all these things, and a pint of Guinness and a bag of chips. It’s streaked with some of the best writing – funny, strange, spiteful, anguished – we’ve ever had from an important musician.” The book went on to spend several weeks on the NY Times Best Seller List.
Ever the bona fide international ambassadors of New York cool, Blondie – vocalist-songwriter Debbie Harry, guitarist and co-writer Chris Stein, powerhouse drummer Clem Burke, and long-time band members bassist Leigh Foxx, guitarist Tommy Kessler and keyboardist Matt Katz-Bohen – has become and still remains a true national treasure; one whose influence both shaped and continues to inform the worlds of music, fashion, art and pop culture. Blondie’s chart-topping success, fearless spirit and rare longevity led to an induction into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, a NME Godlike Genius Award in 2014, a Q Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2016, and more than 50 million albums sold worldwide to date.
Elvis Costello & The Imposters and Blondie Co-Headlining 2019 Tour Dates:
7/20 – Bethel, NY @ Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
7/21 – Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun Arena
7/23 – Boston, MA @ Rockland Trust Bank Pavilion
7/24 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium*
7/26 – Washington DC @ The Anthem*
7/27 – Camden, NJ @ BB&T Pavilion
8/1 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Pearl Theater At The Palms
8/2 – Temecula, CA @ Pechanga Summit
8/4 – Irvine, CA @ FivePoint Amphitheatre
8/5 – Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre
8/7 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl*
8/8 – San Francisco, CA @ Concord Pavilion
8/10 – Seattle, WA @ Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery
*Not a Live Nation date
