The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have announced a series of comeback shows for next year, their first since splitting up five years ago.
The band officially announced that they had broken up in November 2019, with frontman Kip Berman writing on Instagram that his life had “changed radically” since the band first formed in 2007 and that he had decided to focus on other projects.
The group also included singer and keyboardist Peggy Wang, bassist Alex Naidus and drummer Kurt Feldman and they released their self-titled debut in 2009 together with three further full-length albums, 2011’s ‘Belong’, 2014’s ‘Days of Abandon’ and 2017’s, ‘The Echo of Pleasure.’
Now, they have announced that they will be getting back together for a series of shows to celebrate the 15th anniversary of that debut album. The shows will take place in Spain and Portugal in February and March 2025, with tickets going on sale at 11am local time on Tuesday (August 20). You can get yours here.
“We got some news!” wrote the band on Instagram on Friday (August 16). “To celebrate the 15 year anniversary of our debut album, we’ll be touring Spain + Portugal in February/March 2025. Yeah, we know it’ll actually be 16 years by then, but… The Pains of Being Bad at Math.”
The post confirms that Berman, Wang and Feldman will be joined by Christoph Hochheim on guitar, with Eddy Marshall filling in on bass in place of Alex Naidus, who misses the shows for “(very good) personal things”.
The band will play the debut album in full at the shows, as well as “a few other songs from that era too”.
“I don’t know if we’ll be doing more (or less) of this in the future,” the post continues. “But for right now, we’re all excited to get this chance to be together and play these songs that, quite literally, changed our lives.”
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart will play:
FEBRUARY 2025
19 – Porto, Mouco
20 – A Coruna, Garufa Club
21 – Oviedo, Almacenes
22 – Tarragona, Sala Zero
23 – Madrid, Lula Club
24 – Sevilla, Sala X
26 – Murcia, Sala R.E.M.
27 – Valencia, 16 Toneladas
28 – Barcelona, Razzmatazz 2
MARCH
1 – Zaragoza, Las Armas
2 – San Sebastian, Dabadaba
Writing about the band’s debut album in a four star review, NME said: “This time last year it was as if someone had been leaving copies of ‘Graceland’ in every thrift-store in Brooklyn. Now it seems like someone has come across a job lot of NME’s legendary ‘C86’ tape of fey indie bands, because they’re all at it – Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts and now this lot.
“Everything from the oh-so-twee name to singer Kip Berman’s affected English accent screams wrong, but it sounds so right; a bit of Mary Chain here, a withering Moz-esque turn of phrase there and a lot of early, jangly My Bloody Valentine everywhere else. But it’s much more than the sum of its parts and too effortlessly effervescent to be studied. Pure indie-pop to hold close to your heart.”