The Afghan Whigs have just announced a show at Whelan’s, Wexford Street on 2 February 2015.
Tickets priced €23 inclusive of booking fee go on sale this Friday, October 31st at 9am from Ticketmaster outlets and www.ticketmatser.ie
Do to the Beast is the first new album by The Afghan Whigs in over a decade and a half. Founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1988, the band has long stood out from its peers, with their savage, rapturous blend of hard rock, classic soul, and frontman Greg Dulli’s searing obsessions. The new album serves as both a homecoming – it marks their return to Sub Pop, for whom the Whigs were the first signing from outside the label’s Northwest base – and a glimpse into the future of one of the most acclaimed bands of the past thirty years.
Do to the Beast proves an appropriately feral title for one of the most intense, cathartic records of Dulli’s entire career – one that adds fresh twists to The Afghan Whigs canon. On it, one finds the film noir storytelling of Black Love, the exuberance of 1965, the brutal introspection of Gentlemen, but rendered with a galvanized musical spirit and rhythmic heft that suggests transcendence and hope amidst the bloodletting. “A lot of records I’ve done stemmed from epochal experiences in my life – and this time I’ve used them all,” Dulli says. “These new songs are very visual to me. They come from the neighborhoods of my mind. It’s like Rashomon, with the story told from different points of memory.”
That wasn’t actually the case, however. The Afghan Whigs were unexpectedly brought back into the ring by The Fader, which had arranged for them to play a surprise collaborative set with R&B superstar Usher at 2013’s SXSW conference. “That moment crystallized the possibility that we’d record together again,” Curley says. “Soon after, Greg began compiling the ideas he’d kept in his pocket that he felt were distinctly Whigs songs.”
Reunited anew, The Afghan Whigs will tour worldwide in support of Do to the Beast – kicking off an extensive jaunt with a performance at Coachella 2014 in April. “It feels like a celebration, and the start of something new,” Curley says. “Something that’s exhilarating and scary at the same time.”
ON SALE FRI 31st OCT, 9AM: €23 available online from WAV Tickets [Lo-Call 1890 200 078] (50c per ticket service charge applies on phone or creditcard bookings)
