May shows scheduled for Them Crooked Vultures in Canada

May was looking like it would be a month away from the road for Them Crooked Vultures, perhaps giving the group some studio time to put finishing touches on what would be their second album.

But now, May will include a trip to Canada for at least two shows. The band announced yesterday two shows in the province Quebec on May 11 and 12. Tickets to both shows go on sale tomorrow.

• English speakers can purchase tickets for the May 11 concert in Quebec City beginning here tomorrow at 10 a.m. Eastern and for May 12 in Montreal beginning here tomorrow at noon.
• French speakers should click here for Quebec City and here for Montreal.

Further Canadian dates in May appear very likely to follow, as the official announcement yesterday said, "These dates mark the start of the groups Canadian tour ..."

This leaves a large gap of dates between a brief string of U.S. shows and the Canadian tour. So far, only three U.S. shows have been announced:

• April 16 at the Coachella music festival in California
• April 17 at the Joint in Las Vegas, Nev.
• April 19 at the Fillmore in Denver, Colo.

It would only be natural to fill up the itinerary in late April and early May with more U.S. shows.

The band is also set to perform a handful of European festival dates in June and July before continuing on to Japan for an appearance at Naeba Ski Resort, which could be Them Crooked Vultures' farewell for a while.

• Soon after that, Josh Homme is scheduled to return to Queens of the Stone Age for some concerts including the Area 4 festival on Aug. 20 in Germany, and shows in Berlin on Aug. 24 and Hamburg on Aug. 25.
• Then, September is supposed to mark Dave Grohl's return to the Foo Fighters, and that band will be recording a new disc Grohl intends to be their "heaviest album yet," celebrating the 20th anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind.

Before all of that, however, there's still tons of time for fans of John Paul Jones and Them Crooked Vultures to find out about other band activity.

• We await to hear if any more April or May tour dates might be in the works for the United States and Canada.
• Of course, there's whatever "new 'in the studio' footage" will debut this Sunday on the Amazon artist page for Them Crooked Vultures. Will this signal some promise for a new album?
• Even if it's not a second album they're angling to dish details on, there may be some other kind of new release in the near future. The band has been toying with the idea of releasing an EP with some of the songs they recorded that did not make it onto the album. The titles of six songs already copyrighted late last year are "Bombs Away," "Break Glass," "Dead Wrong," "I Should Have Let Them Go," "Orca" and "You Can’t Possibly Begin to Imagine." Plus, there's "Highway One," which the band has been playing live regularly ever since a show in Boston last October. That's plenty of material for an EP!

The remaining months before Them Crooked Vultures goes on a supposed hiatus look to be full of activity.

In the meantime, the band's latest YouTube video, "Fresh Pots," now has been viewed more than 263,100 times. Some of the footage is almost definitely taken from the same sources that went into their in-the-studio compilation for "Elephants" that debuted in August 2009.

In addition to Grohl's "mug shot" as seen in yesterday's post, LedZeppelinNews.com has now spotted another clip that has been used in both videos. It is the shot when Grohl, seated at a drum set, twirls a stick in his right hand and then crashes down on some cymbals.

Compare the darker version seen in last year's "Elephants" video with the brightened version seen in Monday's "Fresh Pots."

So, if "Fresh Pots" itself includes new "in the studio" footage, not all of it is.