Frank Ocean is a man who likes to keep his fans waiting. After releasing Blonde, his long-awaited follow up to Channel Orange, in August, he has finally lined up some shows. Ocean is scheduled to hit up two festivals next summer. The first will be NorthSide in Denmark on June 9 and the second Lovebox in London on July 14. The latter date is deemed a “London exclusive” on the fest’s website. According to Rolling Stone, these appearances will mark the first time he has performed live since 2014.
In a recent New York Times interview, Ocean alluded to carefully choosing where he was going to play based on data. “I need to know how many records I’ve sold, how many album equivalents from streaming, which territories are playing my music more than others, because it helps me in conversations about where we’re gonna be playing shows, or where I might open a retail location, like a pop-up store or something,” he said.
Ocean also debuted a visual album in tandem with Blonde, titled Endless. In reviewing the albums, The A.V. Club wrote that Ocean “deserves credit for achieving transcendence in the first place on most of Blonde, even if, like Endless, it could use an editor.“