Ezra Furman is wrapping up a UK tour supporting her most recent album, last year’s All of Us Flames, and says that once it’s over she’ll be taking an “open-ended hiatus from touring,” and not playing any shows outside of her hometown of Boston for an “undecided amount of time.”
“There are many reasons for this,” she says. “The best way to summarize it is that I’ve been doing this exhausting and wonderful work for something like seventeen years now (!) and I am tired. Recent events including a popular explosion of transphobia, increasingly corporate-owned music venues, COVID-19, the demands of motherhood and some unsettling audience encounters have made it all the more difficult for me.”
“Even without that stuff, any sort of touring is effing difficult,” she continues. “The pressure and the exhaustion are immense. It has a major impact on the body and mind and the structure of one’s life. Since I was a teenager (other than the ’20-’21 heavy Covid times) there has never been even a 6-month period of my life without touring. That’s because I love it and I have always loved it and always will. But it’s time for me to explore life without it, and follow my instincts of what’s necessary to take care of myself.”
“I will add, in case it’s not obvious: I’m not done with music and creativity,” Ezra adds. “Art is not my career and it’s not my hobby; it’s a life path. One of the pathways of my life and spirit. One reason not to tour is to spend more time clearing that pathway so I can freely walk it and see where it goes next.”
Ezra says the hiatus “Could be a permanent change, could be different in a year, I just don’t know.” Read her statement in full, and see her currently planned dates, below.
EZRA FURMAN: 2023 TOUR DATES
Aug 27 Kettering, GB Greenbelt Festival
Aug 28 Cambridge, GB Junction 2
Aug 29 Birmingham, GB Hare & Hounds
Aug 30 Leeds, GB Belgrave Music Hall
Aug 31 Cardiff, GB Tramshed
Sep 2 Manchester, GB Manchester Psych Fest
Sep 3 Salisbury, GB End of the Road Festival