Sophia Michaels
Big Joanie, the British post-punk trio, will launch their first North American tour this spring, just a few months after they released Back Home, one of Rolling Stone’s favorite albums of ’22. The tour spans most of the U.S., as well as a couple of Canadian dates, and includes one show at Brooklyn’s Union Pool that has already sold out.
To mark the tour, they recorded a live rendition of Back Home’s “Cactus Tree,” all facing one another at London’s Hermitage Works Studio. Singer-guitarist Stephanie Phillips and her bandmates, bassist Estella Adeyeri and drummer Chardine Taylor-Stone sing about mourning or missing someone on the track. “He only walks where shadows fall, and in my dreams,” she sings as they play fuzzy, noisy guitar with crashing cymbals. “He comes to me under a cactus tree.” The clip features additional guitar by Vanessa Govinden, who will join the band on its upcoming tour.
Other songs from Back Home celebrate queer romance (“In My Arms”) and send up toxic masculinity (“Confident Man”). Their cover of Solange’s “Cranes in the Sky” was previously one of Rolling Stone’s “Songs You Need to Know.” Rolling Stone praised Back Home, saying, “This trio of Black British feminists self-identify as punk, but this album makes it plain that the world is their musical oyster. From the cascading harmonies and chorus-pedaled riffs with which ‘Cactus Tree’ crashes in, up to the video-game synths of ‘Sainted,’ Back Home shows Big Joanie ready to try anything and coming up a winner each time.”
Big Joanie tour dates:
March 19 – Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
March 20 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
March 22 – Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Festival
March 25 – Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern
March 26 – Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall
March 28 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
March 30 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
March 31 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
May 19 – Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade – Purgatory
May 20 – Nashville, TN @ Third Man Records
May 22 – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd Music House
May 23 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
May 25 – Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool
May 26 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right
May 29 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz
May 30 – Toronto, ON @ The Garrison
June 1 – Columbus, OH @ Natalie’s Grandview
June 2 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
