Jon wrote:
I doubt it, considering almost no one showed up on their previous US tour.
There's actually been an issue with them drawing significant crowds in the U.S. going all the way back to the Rockoon tour in 1992. Using New York City as an example, they just about filled the Beacon Theater in 1986 (capacity of 2900 people), ditto for Radio City Music Hall in 1988 (capacity of 6,000), but then in 1992 the Beacon Theater was barely half full. After that tour was over, they didn't perform in the U.S. again until that one-off L.A. gig in 1995 to promote ToB. Which- as I recall- was free but barely drew in a couple hundred people. There was talk of a 1996 U.S. tour in conjunction with the release of GOBLINS CLUB, but promoters wanted to make it a co-headlining bill with an act like Future Sound of London or Chemical Brothers (both of whom were good sellers for the Astralwerks label at the time) because they didn't think TD would be enough of a draw on their own. Unsurprisingly that idea was balked at, and after the lone new studio album on Sequel/Castle the U.S. market was pretty much ignored until 2011 when they appeared at MoogFest and then embarked on a 7 date North American tour the following year. The New York City show was at the Best Buy Theater. Capacity is 2100, yet only 200 people showed up. Not due to a lack of interest in this kind of music either, because a couple weeks back I saw Jean-Michel Jarre at Radio City and the place was packed.
I think also, that the US problems in 2012 were a lot down to bad promotion and tour management. I seem to remember that at some point the original promoter was taken ill and the New York gig was rescheduled for what then was the Best Buy Theater. I went from London to NY for that gig and it was a great show and a shame that more people didn't get to it. Mind you, having the 'more intimate' feel due to the small audience was quite nice too, to be honest. I am hoping they will get some better promoters this time and do some 'proper' full size tour in 2018, rather than the smaller gigs in Berlin etc. that they are doing at the moment, good though they are!!