SPARKS WILL BE AT THE EASTERN ON MONDAY 03/21/22

Sparks are celebrating their award-winning post-millennial renaissance with an epic world tour, including the biggest North American run of their remarkable career. North American dates officially get underway Friday, March 11 at San Francisco, CA’s historic Warfield Theatre and continue through early April, followed by eagerly awaited shows in the UK and Europe. Covid protocols are below. For complete details and ticket availability, please visit allsparks.com.

Sparks began came back to the stage for the first time last month with a pair of triumphant, sold-out hometown shows at Los Angeles, CA’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, both of which were met by critical applause from such outlets as Consequence, which declared, “The pair’s chemistry and performance of material old and new, was full of life, flowing flawlessly throughout the 25-song setlist…The Maels provided a collage of their long and unconventional career with songs that showcased their fantastical lyricism and signature genre-blends of bubblegum, electro and pop…A performance that was sonically theatrical in mood and pitch-perfect in execution.”

SPARKS TOUR 2022 – COVID PROTOCOLS:

In these times of great uncertainty due to Covid, embarking on a tour is fraught with concerns and many artists have taken the difficult decision to further postpone or cancel shows. Sparks, however, are intending to go ahead with their tour.

We want them to safely complete the entire tour. We also want the concert environment to be as safe as possible for everyone attending the shows. But we will need your help to achieve that. To protect Ron, Russell, the band, the crew, and the fans, there will be Covid guidance in place at each venue on the forthcoming tour and we encourage you to check the show page on the venue’s website for that show before attending.

Firstly, we’d like to thank everyone for adhering to the guidance and wearing a mask inside the auditorium at the upcoming shows. While vaccination passes, testing and masks might not be enforceable in every location on the tour, if you are coming to a show, we would ask you to think about what actions you can take to help ensure that Sparks make it through the tour in good health. Naturally, we want you, the attendees, to stay healthy as well.

There is no insurance if shows are canceled due to Covid. If the band are exposed to the virus in a venue and needs to cancel subsequent shows, not only is that disappointing for fans who have bought tickets for those future shows, it also has huge financial complications.

Also: due to the nature of the tour, please don’t feel offended if Ron and Russell can’t stop to sign autographs or take photos with fans before or after shows.

– SPARKS HQ

SPARKS TOUR 2022

MARCH

11 – San Francisco, CA – Warfield Theatre

13 – Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom

14 – Seattle, WA – The Showbox

15 – Vancouver, BC – Vogue Theatre

18 – St. Paul, MN – Fitzgerald Theatre

19 – Chicago, IL – Copernicus Center

21 – Atlanta, GA – The Eastern

22 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium

24 – Knoxville, TN – Big Ears Festival

25 – Raleigh, NC – Lincoln Theatre

26 – Washington, DC – Lincoln Theatre

28 – New York, NY – Town Hall

29 – New York, NY – Town Hall

30 – Boston, MA – Boch Center Shubert Theatre

APRIL

1 – Royal Oak, MI – Royal Oak Music Theatre

2 – Toronto, ON – Queen Elizabeth Theatre

10 – Dublin, IR – Vicar Street

11 – Belfast, UK – Ulster Hall

13 – Glasgow, UK – Barrowland

14 – Manchester, UK – Albert Hall

16 – Bexhill-On-Sea, UK – De La Warr Pavilion

17 – London, UK – The Roundhouse

19 – Paris, FR – Casino de Paris

21 – Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso

22 – Brussels, BE – Ancienne Belgique, AB Flex

24 – Berlin, DE – Metropol

25 – Hamburg, DE – Mojo Club

27 – Oslo, NO – Rockefeller

29 – Stockholm, SW – Annexet

30 – Copenhagen, DK – DR Koncerthuset

MAY

3 – Helsinki, FI – Kultturitalo

4 – Tallinn, EE – Alexela Kontserdimaja

6 – Riga, LV – Hanzas Perons

7 – Vilnius, LT – Compensa Concert Hall

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There’s never been a better time to be a Sparks fan. Levels of interest in the work of Ron and Russell Mael are at a height unseen since their 1970s breakthrough.

2021’s acclaimed career-spanning documentary film, The Sparks Brothers, directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz, Baby Driver), brought an awareness of Sparks to parts they previously hadn’t reached. Their 2021 film musical Annette, directed by Leos Carax and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, has been showered with awards, especially in France where Carax won “Best Director” at Cannes, and where the film won three Lumières Awards and five top César Awards, including a prestigious “Best Original Score” prize for Ron and Russell. The ultimate cult band are suddenly center stage, in the full beam of the spotlight.

Most people, with even a passing acquaintance with Sparks, will know the basics by now. How Californian brothers Ron and Russell Mael, both students at UCLA, began making music together in the late Sixties, originally under the name Halfnelson. How their Top Of The Pops debut with “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us” stunned a generation and nearly scored them a UK #1. How their career moved through many phases, including (but not limited to) art rock, glam, big band swing, electro-disco, new wave, and synthpop, taking in collaborations with Todd Rundgren, Les Rita Mitsouko, Tony Visconti, and Giorgio Moroder, and Franz Ferdinand, to name but a few.

How keyboardist and songwriter Ron’s intricate staccato arrangements combine with the hysteria-pitch falsetto in which Russell delivers his brother’s always-on-point lyrics. How Ron’s stillness and stern, intimidating visage contrasts onstage with Russell’s hyperactivity. How their popularity has spiked unpredictably in different territories at different times: Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Japan, and their homeland the United States. And how the influence of “the greatest band you’ve never heard of” or “your favorite band’s favorite band” has been recognized by successive generations of artists from Joy Division and Duran Duran to Depeche Mode and Björk to Beck, The Darkness, and beyond.

The early 21^st century, that crucial period in the 2000s between the “Crackerjack Years” of their first flushes of fame and their current success, saw Sparks rediscovering their muse and releasing some of the finest work of their career, including five albums – Balls (2000), Lil’ Beethoven (2002), Hello Young Lovers (2006), Exotic Creatures Of The Deep (2008), and The Seduction Of Ingmar Bergman (2009) – set to be reissued later this year in remastered deluxe editions featuring an array of previously unreleased bonus material; pre-orders are available HERE. Sparks’ more recent studio releases – Hippopotamus (2017) and A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip (2020) – plot out the path of an extraordinary renaissance for the Mael brothers.

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