The Pixies Announce New Doolittle Tour Dates

The tour will kick off April 9 at the Metro Center in Halifax and work its way across to Western Canada, ending in Vancouver on May 3.

This will be the Pixies' most extensive tour of the provinces, and will see the band visiting several Canadian cities for the very first time. In addition, the tour will make stops in three U.S. cities.

Starting tomorrow, Friday, January 21 at 9:00AM EST, a limited number of tickets for the tour dates will be available through a special pre-sale at www.pixiesmusic.com. In addition, all pre-sale purchases will include a "download taster" of live tracks from the "Doolittle" show. The public on-sale will kick off next Friday, January 28 - log onto www.pixiesmusic.com for all details.

Before the Pixies head to Canada, they'll be tuning in to the February 13 Grammy Awards telecast to see if the stunning Minotaur Deluxe Edition picks up the statue for "Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package." Minotaur, which was released last summer, is the definitive Pixies' collector's set, containing all five of the band's studio albums on 24k gold-plated CDs, DVD and Blu-ray discs, a DVD and Blu-ray of the Pixies' 1991 performance at London's Brixton Academy, and an exquisite 54-page book of legendary designer Vaughn Oliver and photographer Simon Larbalestier's project artwork, all housed in a custom dual-chambered slipcase. This marks the first time a Pixies' project has received a Grammy nomination.

On the "Doolittle Tour," the Pixies - Black Francis, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago and David Lovering - perform all of the songs from their 1989 classic Doolittle and its related B-sides. "Weird at My School," "Dancing the Manta Ray," and "Bailey's Walk" among them. Doolittle, the band's third album and the first to chart on Billboard's album charts, includes classics such as "Debaser," "Wave of Mutilation," "Here Comes Your Man," "Hey," and "Gouge Away."

An imaginative cinematic production has been created for the "Doolittle Tour." Designed by long-time Pixies lighting designer Myles Mangino and designer Paul Normandale, the set features four huge, undulating, eyeball-like spheres flown just below the lighting rig and are part of the concert's light show. Filmmakers Judy Jacobs, Tom Winkler, Brent Felix and Melinda Tupling were brought on board to create 11 films especially for the production. The films are projected onto a massive backdrop video screen to accompany 12 of the 21 songs that comprise the show.

As an example, visuals accompanying the song "Debaser" are from a compilation titled "Forbidden Images." The hauntingly beautiful black and white footage from the 1920s depicts the beginning of the women's rights movement, showing women's exuberant playfulness, femininity and sensuality. The footage, a little too progressive for its time period, was originally banned from theaters.

For "Here Comes Your Man," a four-way split screen displays close up images of the band members dancing along to the song; "I Bleed" sees blood dripping down the screen in time to the music; "Hey" features hand-drawn animation of the song's lyrics by Hollywood animator Tom Winkler; clouds, black holes, and Mankind's arrogance destroying the Earth are the focus for "Monkey Gone to Heaven," while "La La Love You" is a humorous animated piece starring hearts with legs.

The concert opens with the showing of the 1929 silent surrealist short film, "Un Chien Andalou," which was produced in France by Spanish director Luis Bunuel and artist Salvador Dali, and provided the impetus for Black Francis in writing "Debaser."

The Pixies perfected the "Doolittle" extravaganza over the past 20 months, having first launched it in the UK and Europe in the fall of 2009, playing to sold-out crowds in Ireland, Scotland, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, and to 20,000 fans over four nights in London. The band then brought it to America in November 2009 where it played multiple-night sell-outs from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York, then again in the fall of 2010 where it criss-crossed the country, also to capacity crowds. The tour received five-star reviews in the [London] Times, the Guardian and the Independent, and the U.S. press loved the show as well: "The Pixies continue to WOW." "...a straight-forward rock show that was all about the music..." "'Doolittle' still plants the freak flag in alt-rock's twilight zone, where lullabies meet blasphemy, waves of mutilation pound forests into driftwood, and all good monkeys go to heaven." "...an almost indescribable joy..." "...their live performance left no doubt that they are just as lively and connected than they ever have been. If not more so."

Dates for the Pixies' 2011 "Doolittle Tour" are as follows:

APRIL
9 Metro Centre, Halifax, NS
10 Centre - Casino Moncton, Moncton, NB
12 Salle Albert-Rousseau, Quebec City, QC
13 Metropolis, Montreal, QC
16 Civic Centre, Ottawa, ON
17 The Center in the Square, Kitchener, ON
18 Massey Hall, Toronto, ON
20 Wentworth Room, Hamilton, ON
22 Fox Theatre, Detroit, MI
23 Eagles Ballroom, Milwaukee, WI
24 Roy Wilkins Auditorium, St. Paul, MN
27 Centennial Concert Hall, Winnipeg, MB
29 TCU Place, Saskatoon, SK
30 Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, Calgary, AB