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Holy cow, Sunny Day Real Estate is planning a fall tour!

June 24th, 2009 Posted by: Dust Devil

November 19, 1998, a band hailing out of Seattle came to the Jackson Hole in Phoenix, AZ to play a show. They were touring in support of their third album How It Feels To Be Something On. The band was Sunny Day Real Estate, back from the dead with three of their original four members after a two-year hiatus from 1995-1997. I had opportunites to see them two more times after that, but blew it on both occasions. Now all four original members are back and will be hitting the road the fall of 2009!

During that tour the line-up consisted of Jeremy Enigk on vocals and guitar, William Goldsmith on drums and Dan Hoerner on guitar. Original bass player Nate Mendel was still playing with the Foo Fighters, so Joe Bass had assumed bass duties during this tour. The show was an incredible experience! The band played with the type of intensity and subtle power they had become well-known for, doing a beautiful job on all their songs.

However, I have never seen the original line-up and gave up hope a long time ago of that ever happening. Sunny Day Real Estate with Nate Mendel on the bass was an incredible band. They created two masterpieces in their short three year career, Diary and LP2, commonly referred to as The Pink Album. Emo was right on the cusp of becoming a genre of force in music, with Washington D.C. era bands such as Fugazi, Rites of Spring and Embrace introducing the style to the masses in the mid-eighties. Sunny Day took the genre and cultivated it into a beautiful, mind-blowing art form.

Too bad there are so many current bands that have KILLED the genre, making it into a complete mockery today. Why else would there be t-shirts around today stating “I Wish My Lawn-Mower Was Emo So It Would Cut Itself”?

There are several stories as to why the band originally split up in 1995. Once they did Jeremy released his first solo record Return of the Frog Queen and Nate and William joined the Foo Fighters. When the band’s label Sub Pop talked to Jeremy and Dan about the possibility of compiling their older singles into an album, the four members decided to get back together to record a few new singles. Realizing the reasons for their break-up were in the past, the band decided to fully reunite, but in the end Nate Mendel left and rejoined the Foo Fighters.

The reunited Sunny Day Real Estate released two albums between 1997 and 2000, the aforementioned How It Feels To Be Something On and the 2000 release of The Rising Tide. Both were solid releases and did nothing to detract from the legacy of the band, but the sound was a bit different from the first two releases and many long-time fans longed for a return to the powerful style of the original line-up, highlighted by tracks such as Seven, In Circles, Theo B and Rodeo Jones. When the band’s new label, Time Bomb Recordings, decided not to finance a European tour, the band decided to call it quits once again.

The recent announcement that not only will newly remastered editions of the band’s classic first two albums be reissued, but a full-scale tour beginning September 17 is coming, brought a lot of joy to a lot of fans, including the Dust Devil. I have always believed this band had not finished what they had initially started, and with Nate back in the fold for now the possibilities seem limitless.

Check out this schedule of Sunny Day Real Estate concert dates, hopefully your city is one of the lucky ones. The Valley of the Sun is one of the fortunate areas, but the show of the tour may very well be the last stop on October 16, back in their hometown of Seattle at the Paramount Theatre.

Who knows if this is a one-off deal or if the band is back for good? Folks, I won’t take that chance, and neither should you. This should be a definite on your concert schedule for the year. I am considering making the trip to Seattle so I can see them twice this go-around. I have to make up for having tickets twice to see them and failing to go on both occasions!

Don’t forget, the Diary and LP2 reissues drop on September 15!

Cheers,
The Dust Devil

Filed under: Concert Tour Announcements