Stephin Merritt, everybody’s favorite indie-pop curmudgeon, has announced a solo tour with a twist: At each show, Merritt will perform 26 songs, one for each letter of the alphabet. This might be a cheap gimmick for many performers, but for a man who created an entire album of songs that begin with the letter I, there’s actually an extensive catalog to work with—enough that the shows could be quite different from each other. Merritt performed one of these alphabet shows in Chicago last year, and it was a delightful and intimate evening of just Merritt and his ukulele performing “Andrew In Drag” through “Zombie Boy.”
Merritt has performed and/or recorded albums as The Magnetic Fields, The Gothic Archies, The Sixths, and Future Bible Heroes, and if the Chicago show was any indication, any of those songs are fair game. The tour launches in Philadelphia on May 2, and ends 12 cities later in Annandale-On-Hudson in New York. Longtime Magnetic Fields collaborator Sam Davol will join Merritt on the tour. A complete list of dates is below.
May 2: Philadelphia—Union Transfer
May 3: Washington, D.C.—Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
May 4: Atlanta—Buckhead Theatre
May 6: Austin, Texas—Central Presbyterian Church
May 8: Los Angeles—Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
May 9: Los Angeles—Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
May 10: San Francisco—The Independent
May 12: Portland, Oregon—Aladdin Theater
May 13: Seattle—Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya
May 15: Minneapolis—Cedar Cultural Center
May 16: Columbus, Ohio—Wexner Center For The Arts
June 9: Cambridge, Massachusetts—The Sinclair
July 24: Annandale-On-Hudson, New York—The Spiegeltent