The Church Return to the Road While Work on a New Album Continues

The Church are constructing a follow up to 2014's Further/Deeper and, in the meantime, the always-busy band will return to the concert trail. They have a total of nine U.S. shows set, beginning on June 28.

Planned stops include Cincinnati, Nashville and Chicago, among other cities. Co-founders Steve Kilbey and Peter Koppes will also lead the Australian psych-rock band through a performance at this year’s Summerfest in Milwaukee. A complete list of announced dates, cities and venues is below.

This tour follows a series of well-received recent North American jaunts, including dates with the Psychedelic Furs. The Church also played their initial European dates in almost a decade. Not bad for a band best known for the Top 25 hit "Under the Milky Way" from all the way back in 1988.

It wasn't always easy; Kilbey said a bout with drugs ensued. Their hit song "probably made me a million bucks," Kilbey admitted, in a talk with the Sydney Morning Herald. "If I had earned that money digging trenches on a construction site, I would not have treated it as cavalierly as I did."

But the Church kept at it, following up the gold-selling Starfish – home to "Under the Milky Way" – with a remarkably consistent 16 more albums over the years. They performed the band's 1982 sophomore release The Blurred Crusade in its entirety in 2016, but the second set pointedly focused on music from Further/Deeper.

"We've avoided the nostalgia emphasis in our acts because we've been continually working, pursuing our musical explorations," Koppes told the Quietus. "Many of our fans have been loyal with us, though some fans that liked us around Starfish aren't aware that we're still active making records."

The Church's 2017 U.S. Tour
6/28 – Ann Arbor, MI, The Ark
6/29 – Milwaukee, WI, Summerfest
6/30 – Cincinnati, OH, The Woodward
7/1 – Nashville, TN, City Winery
7/3-4 – Chicago, IL, City Winery
7/6 – Richmond, VA, The Broadberry
7/7 – Ardmore, PA, Ardmore Music Hall
7/8 – Pawling, NY, Daryl’s House

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