Once, while driving to a venue whose name I can’t recall, my friend turned to me and began to say “I wish Glass Animals would perform more songs from How To Be a Human Being.” I agreed with her idea, not just because “How To Be A Human Being” is my favorite Glass Animals album, but because many artists have begun going on tours to commemorate the anniversary of an album’s release. Typically, artists perform newer tracks in order to promote their newer albums, yet some choose to play work that is almost exclusively older. If you’re a fan of an artist who hasn’t released new music in years yet is currently on tour, it’s likely an anniversary tour!
In some cases, like Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew’s ongoing tour commemorating the 45th anniversary of Talking Heads’ “Remain in Light,” show that the anniversary tour can be a way for artists to play fan favorite tracks from past albums. Others take a form similar to Björk’s 2021-2023 “Orkestral” tour, where the majority of songs on her setlist came from 2001’s “Vespertine,” yet many were personal favorites of the artist’s from throughout her sizable discography.
An anniversary tour isn’t an especially groundbreaking idea. Usually the artists who go on these tours play personal and fan-favorite tracks from one of their more popular albums. Older fans can go to a show to hear songs they’re most familiar with, newer fans can attend to hear the artist reflect on their work and play personal favorites from earlier albums.
Due to tours like these not relying on promoting a recently released album, some artists use them as an opportunity to perform unreleased work that fans likely haven’t heard before. For example, Ethel Cain has used tours unrelated to the release of new music to promote new tracks *years* before release. Some online may view tours like these as unoriginal and even lazy, yet the demand for celebrating release anniversaries is apparent in the amount of listeners who go to hear artists reflect on their past work.