Florence And The Machine Will 'Keep It Pure' On Upcoming Tour

On Monday (January 23), Florence and the Machine officially announced their spring U.S. tour, a run of shows that kicks off April 14 in Santa Barbara, California, and wraps May 12 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, with a handful of festival dates sprinkled in for good measure.

It's the first proper stateside tour Flo & Co. have launched in support of their Ceremonials album (they played a light schedule of radio dates at the end of the year). But if you think they'll be matching that record's sonic scope with an equally gigantic stage show, you'd be wrong. After wowing audiences here with an unending stream of epic, wide-screen TV performances, this time out, they're going to let the songs stand on their own, as mastermind Florence Welch told MTV News.

"In a way, it's not going to be too big a production; we've done a lot of quite extravagant stuff, and that's been amazing, but for this tour, it's definitely going to be about showcasing the music," she said. "The songs are going to be the most important thing. It will be heavily based on the music ... no bells and whistles just yet, we're going to try and keep it quite pure."

So, in a sense, the upcoming trek will hark back to Welch's early days, in more ways than one. She's also taking along longtime friend and former collaborator Dev Hynes, currently recording as Blood Orange, as her opening act.

"It's going to be so fun, I can't wait. I used to be his backing singer in Lightspeed Champion, he took me on tour with him for one date, in Manchester [England]. He was one of the first members of Florence and the Machine, he used to play guitar with me at all my first gigs," Welch said. "Even though he was doing his own stuff, he used to come and play guitar for me. We'd be in these weird matching outfits, T-shirts and lumberjack trousers, doing Iggy Pop covers and I would play the drums, Green Day covers [too]. We covered the whole of Nimrod."

Dates for Florence and the Machine's spring tour:

� 4/14 -- Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl
� 4/15 -- Indio, CA @ Coachella
� 4/17 -- Reno, NV @ Grand Sierra Resort
� 4/18 -- Davis, CA @ Mondavi Center at UC Davis
� 4/20 -- Phoenix, AZ @ Comerica Theatre
� 4/21 -- Las Vegas, NV @ The Cosmopolitan
� 4/22 -- Indio, CA @ Coachella
� 4/27 -- Minneapolis, MN @ Hennepin Theatre
� 4/28 -- Milwaukee, WI @ Eagles Ballroom
� 4/29 -- St. Louis, MO @ Peabody Opera House
� 5/1 -- Dallas, TX @ Palladium Ballroom
� 5/2 -- Houston, TX @ Verizon Wireless Theatre
� 5/3 -- New Orleans, LA @ New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
� 5/8 -- New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall
� 5/11 -- Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun Arena
� 5/12 -- Atlantic City, NJ @ Borgata Event Center

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