MUSIC: Cult favourites Yo La Tengo to kick off tour in Dublin

YO La Tengo will embark on a new UK and European tour next year with dates in spring 2018. 

 Commencing in Dublin on April 28, the trio of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew will be performing across a host of UK and continental cities, culminating on May 20 in Brussels. 

 These shows mark the first European appearances and full-fledged tour of one of the most celebrated and adventurous bands in rock history since the release of 2015’s full-length ‘Stuff Like That There’. 

It promises to be a busy 2018 for the American indie rock band that was first formed in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1984.

Since 1992, the line-up has consisted of Kaplan (guitars, piano, vocals), Hubley (drums, piano, vocals), and McNew (bass, vocals).

In 2015, original guitarist Dave Schramm re-joined the band and appeared on their fourteenth album, ‘Stuff Like That There’.

Despite achieving limited mainstream success, Yo La Tengo has been called "the quintessential critics' band" and they maintain a strong cult following to this day.

Though they mostly play original material, Yo La Tengo is renowned for its encyclopaedic repertoire of cover songs both in live performance and on record.

In 1993, Yo La Tengo began their partnership with Matador Records, releasing a 7" and CD5 of the song ‘Shaker’, which the band recorded with John Siket in New Jersey.

The following LP, 1993's ‘Painful’, was also the beginning of the band's fruitful creative partnership with producer Roger Moutenot, who has produced all of their subsequent albums up until 2013's ‘Fade’, which was produced by John McEntire.

Painful was the first Yo La Tengo album to feature James McNew on every song.

This is when group really started, Ira Kaplan believes.

“Painful was the first record that we made as the three of us,” he has said previously.

“And I think it sounds different from the things that came before it.”

In 2014, they played an Indiana-based Night Ranger cover band, Bobby Night Ranger, in the final episode of Season 6 of the television series ‘Parks and Recreation’.

On June 2, 2015, Yo La Tengo announced they were working on ‘Stuff Like That There’, an album of re-recorded versions of some of their old songs as well as covers, including songs by The Cure, Hank Williams, and Sun Ra.

In 2016, the band released ‘Murder in the Second Degree’, a second compilation of their live impromptu cover-song performances on the New Jersey freeform radio station, WFMU.

In 2017, the band played two dates in New York City with Robyn Hitchcock.

These most recent performances included the Hitchcock album ‘Black Snake Diamond Role’ in its entirety, as well as collections of classic Hitchcock songs and covers of other artists.