Lovejoy

Following a four-show blitz of North America in December, U.K.-based indie rock outfit Lovejoy is returning to the U.S. with a 20-date North American tour. Tickets for the trek went on sale Friday (Feb. 10).

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Lovejoy touch down in North America on May 4 at Nashville’s Basement East and will is also slated to play the Shaky Knees festival in Atlanta on May 5, the Novo in Los Angeles on May 16 and Minneapolis’ First Avenue on May 26. The group will end their tour with a show at the Governor’s Ball Festival on June 10.

Formed during the final days of the pandemic by lead singer Wilbur Soot — a well-known Twitch streamer and former Youtube comedian — with friends from Brighton Beach, England, Lovejoy has amassed nearly 1.6 million monthly listeners on Spotify and built a steady following here in the U.S.

In December, the group’s first U.S. shows — two in Los Angeles and two in New York — quickly sold out, packing venues like L.A.’s Moroccan Lounge with a steady flow of 20-something, mostly female, fans marching to the beat of the band’s double kick drum percussion. Lovejoy’s visit would reveal the band’s status as unlikely heartthrobs and showcase their clever banter and mischievous wit.

Along with the tour announcement, Lovejoy has released a video for the band’s hard-charging new single “Call Me What You Like.” Soot has a penchant for casting himself as a hopeless romantic — a “Jim Halpert” from The Office type, replete with entangled numbness and inescapable inadequacy — and yet he refuses to melt into a floor puddle with a kitschy breakup song. As it turns out, “Call Me What You Like” is a surprising and satisfying middle finger to the notion of having it all as it mucks around in the middle phases of an early relationship close to collapse.

Along with Lovejoy singles “Knee Deep” and “It’s All Futile! It’s All Pointless!”, “Call Me What You Like” demonstrates how much progress the group has made in finding its voice, creating and then dissipating density with surprise hooks, lyrical bridges and stop-on-a-dime change-ups. Many of the songs have Soot walking through vignettes of half-memory and snapshots, pushing listeners farther and farther down the trail with only breadcrumbs to find their way back.

“And so I find’s myself in your mum’s bedroom,” Soot sings on the new single. “Fighting with the pink roller blinds. It’s on pay-per-view. Just place your bests on who’s lost their mind.” When asked what the line meant during a brief interview with bandmates Joe Goldsmith, Ash Kabosu and Mark Boardman, Soot laughed and offered up, “I’m not necessarily sure, in that song I just find myself thinking a lot about her mom’s bathroom and going through the drawers.”

Dates for the 2023 Lovejoy tour are listed below. For more information, visit www.lvjyonline.com.

May 4th – Nashville, TN @ The Basement East

May 5th – Atlanta, GA @ Shaky Knees Music Festival

May 8th – Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater

May 9th – Austin, TX @ Scoot Inn

May 12th – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom

May 13th – San Diego, CA @ Music Box

May 16th – Los Angeles, CA @ The Novo

May 17th – San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo’s 365 Club

May 19th – Portland, OR @ Hawthorne

May 20th – Seattle, WA @ Neumos

May 23rd – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Complex

May 24th – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre (Venue Upgrade) 

May 26th – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue (Venue Upgrade)

May 27th – Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater (Venue Upgrade)

May 28th – Detroit, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre (Venue Upgrade)

May 30th – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall

June 2nd – Boston, MA @ Royale

June 3rd – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts

June 6th – Washington, D.C. @ Howard

June 10th – New York, NY @ Governors Ball Music Festival