I hope news of the Cold War Kids taking their act back to small clubs for multiple nights is the start of a larger trend of artists taking more control keeping them close to their fans. (David Bazan has been doing it with his house show tours notably for years.) Catching them in the old Crocodile was nothing short of a revelation back in 2006 and for others to be able to experience that up close experience again with this band who’s now reached a festival mainstage level of notoriety is a very special opportunity indeed. I wrote back in 2009 “a main-stage set at the Gorge makes that sort of intimate and affecting experience difficult, and I felt disappointed for all of the people who from now on weren’t going to be able to have that chance since the band was growing out of smaller clubs and into arenas.” Maybe they heard my request, since these three nights each in Portland, then Seattle, and then San Fransisco in late February and early March make for the size of show I would actually want to go to.

With the announcement of these plans also comes the online release of two new free songs “Minimum Day” and “Minimum Mistake” from CWK’s own site, or rather one set of lyrics given two different treatments. “Minimum Day” is represents about what we’d expect from the band who’s kept a continued emphasis on remaining raw, something evidenced further still by the recruitment of former Modest Mouse and Murder City Devils’ guitarist Dann Gallucci in place of original guitarist/percussionist Jonny Russell who has moved on. “Minimum Mistake” on the other hand is as spacey as we’ve seen with the same words, emphasizing singer Nathan Willett’s garage soul vocal style, and the band’s signature spooky falsetto echo. Both songs are identifiably of a Cold War Kids vintage in their own way, and so either could have been the definitive version and nobody’d be the wiser. Does that indicate in some way a special feature of what the band will be doing on the tour? Different versions altogether of some songs?

Tickets are on sale for the Columbia City Theater “Minimum Tour” dates today, Friday January 20th at Noon Brown Paper Tickets. “Tickets will be $20 a night or fans can buy tickets for all three evenings for a special discount of $50.”

The Cold War Kids 2012 “Minimum Tour”

02/26 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
02/27 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
02/28 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
03/01 – Seattle, WA @ Columbia City Theater
03/02 – Seattle, WA @ Columbia City Theater
03/03 – Seattle, WA @ Columbia City Theater
03/05 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill
03/06 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill
03/07 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill

This is how this band is meant to be experienced. Will you shrink under bassist’s Matt Maust’s T-Rex staredown?