The Breeders Tour 2017

The Breeders began their 2017 tour with a "warm-up show" at the Southgate House Revival-Sanctuary music venue in Newport, Kentucky on October 10,[1] with opening act Vacation.[2] They then traveled to the United Kingdom for mid-October performances in Glasgow and Manchester, and an October 18 show in London.[1] A concert in Dublin on October 16 was canceled because of Hurricane Orphelia.[3] From October 22 to 27, the group played five concerts in mainland Europe, in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Paris.[1] For these and for the UK shows, the group PINS opened for them.[4] The Breeders then returned to the US for end-of-month 40-minute sets supporting Arcade Fire in St. Paul and Chicago.[5][6]

In early November, the Breeders performed with the group Flasher opening for them, in Detroit,[7] Boston,[8] and Washington, D.C.,[9] followed by dates in Philadelphia and New York City, with Vacation opening again.[10] They then played the five shows on the West Coast between November 8 and 13, in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco (two shows), and Los Angeles; Melkbelly was the support band for this final leg of the tour.[11]

The band played songs from throughout their career. From their first two albums, Pod (1990) and Last Splash (1993), they performed selections including "Fortunately Gone", "Happiness Is a Warm Gun", "No Aloha", "Invisible Man", and "Cannonball".[12] They played "Off You" from Title TK (2002), as well as "Bang On" and "Night of Joy" from Mountain Battles (2008).[13] From their then-forthcoming album All Nerve (2018), the Breeders performed "Archangels Thunderbird", "Walking with a Killer", and their 2017 single "Wait in the Car".[12] Other compositions they played included songs Kim Deal's previous bands the Pixies ("Gigantic") and the Amps ("Pacer", "I Am Decided", and "Tipp City").[13]

About their October 17 concert in Manchester, The Skinny's Joe Goggin wrote that "even as they’re settling slowly back into the saddle, the Breeders have lost little of their daring".[14] Kitty Empire of The Guardian praised their performance of "Wait in the Car" on October 18 at the Electric Ballroom in London.[15] A reviewer at the Indiepoprock website wrote that their performance at Trix in Antwerp on October 23 was charming.[12] In St. Paul on October 29, Chris Riemenschneider of Star Tribune commented that the Breeders' performance "confirmed they’re still very much a contender";[16] City Pages' Erik Thompson called their performance "endearingly shambolic" but stated it would have sounded better at a smaller venue rather than in a "slowly filling arena".[5] The Vinyl District's Brigit Gallagher reported looking forward to the Breeders' upcoming 2018 album based on the "stellar" new songs the group performed at United Center in Chicago.[17] Regarding this same show, Andy Argyrakis of National Rock Review said that the band "never once came across dated throughout 40 meaningful minutes".[6]