Just when it appeared that Mike Patton’s solo date in Amsterdam would signal the end of the FNM reunion, the band have announced their opening two European festival dates of the summer and promised more to follow.

Indeed, should they follow the often hectic schedule of their 2009 European tour, it seems likely that Faith No More will squeeze in another date on the same weekend as their Optimus Alive and Sonisphere engagements in Portugal in Spain. The Bilbao BBK Live festival, which also features Rammstein from Sonisphere and Pearl Jam from Optimus, looks a good bet. Also on the same weekend are the mammoth and related Oxegen and T in the Park festivals in Ireland as well as the Ruisrock festival in Finland, which FNM headlined last year, and Serbia’s iconic Exit festival. Oxegen has gone somewhat hip-hop this year and the bill looks loaded but more names will be revealed on 8 March. T in the Park has already announced its headliners and is sold out so looks a remote possibility.

With as many as ten major festivals taking place across Europe on some weekends, further summer speculation would be laborious and ill-informed. However, some news to keep an eye out for next week is the announcement of the final headliner for the United Kingdom Sonisphere date. No word of an exact date yet but this week’s announcement came on Tuesday. Iron Maiden and Rammstein are already conformed for the Knebworth two-dayer on Friday 30 July and Saturday 1 August.

A confirmation for that and suddenly a whole summer of FNM again looms appealingly for European fans. What though for the US and north America in general? Three Warfield dates and the Coachella festival have been confirmed so far and there’s not even a sniff of a rumour of anything else as of yet. Some fans have taken the new European dates as a sign that there won’t be any more US shows but there is still plenty of time to fit in more dates before a European jaunt and it must be remembered that the lucrative European festival circuit was more than likely the trigger for the whole reunion in the first place so it is hardly surprising that it is being milked again.

As for a new record, again speculation is all I can offer but it does appear that the band have not even got so far as discussing the prospect in detail as of yet. Whatever the future holds, just over one year after the announcement that Faith No More would reform, the Second Coming adventure continues to enthrall.

Let us know your thoughts below.

According to the Holland Festival official website, Mike Patton will return to Europe in June for a sole date at the festival. Billed as a “full-length programme centred on Luciano Berio’s masterpiece Laborintus II, Laborintus II: Mike Patton, Luciano Berio” the performance will take place on 18 June at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ.
The website description reads: “Mike Patton is not one to shy away from experiments. The frontman of Faith No More guest stars in a programme featuring Luciano Berio’s 1965 masterpiece Laborintus II, a modern concert chamber opera based on works by Dante, TS Eliot and Ezra Pound. Ictus, the Nederlands Kamerkoor and video-collective Visual Kitchen support Patton and his musical guests. Laborintus II mixes a whole range of musical styles, from dramatic opera to ‘60’s European jazz. After the break Patton will hold an improvisation session with a host of greats from the international jazz scene. The evening is rounded off with a steaming DJ-set inspired by Italian B-movies.” Full details here. You can also order tickets from that link and full ticket details are here.
(Hat tip to Tamara Damians on Twitter)
More on Luciano Berio:
Allmusic
Daily Telegraph obituary
New York Times obituary
Laborintus II summary

Laborintus II part one

A separate Berio Patton favourite

(Via Patton Archivo) An extensive interview with Faith No More’s Mike Patton was published on Rockmidgets.com today. The piece focuses largely on video gaming with a little mention of a Mondo Cane release in May but none of FNM. Read the full interview here.

The scandal that one but Faith No More 2.0 is calling Mickeygate continues to rumble on. A new photo sent to be by the_wretched1 on Twitter suggests that a) little Mike is bigger than the previous photo suggested and b) he may not have been showing his junk after all but a dildo or prop.
After all, Patton has previous in the prop and prosthetic penis stakes. He claimed to have used a fake in 2002 when he was accused of peeing on a security guard at a Tomahawk show at London’s Astoria although now it seems that the statement was a joke.

Despite the fact that the picture posted yesterday succeeded in knocking over the site (which served to show that a: Go Daddy are a bunch of useless money-grabbing feckers and b: people would prefer to ogle Mike’s member than peruse set lists or watch obscure videos or get latest news on the band) I will risk further outage by posting some video of the same incident I, er, for want of a better phrase, came across online.
On a slightly serious note, the clip does give a little bit of content to the photo in that Mike was getting his mickey out in a Chatroulette homage and not in a Jim Morrison bout of exhibitionism.

Faith No More have not long finished their second show in Mebourne, Here is the set list, courtesy of setlist.fm. You may note that it contains such rareish gems as Small Victory, Edge of the World and Mark Bowen and a as yet unidentified one-time only cover.
Mike Patton also joked about Twitter apparently, perhaps piqued that his member has been circulating round the Twittersphere over the past few days.
There are already some cracking photos up on Flickr. None more so than those from Amped photography.

More details as we have them.

NOT FOR MINORS OR THOSE OF A SENSITIVE DISPOSITION

Ladies, some gents and fan-boys, your darkest, dearest wishes have been granted. Below, via tanithskye on Twitter, is Mike Patton getting his penis out onstage at the Soundwave festival in Brisbane last weekend. Enjoy or whatever.
More details and pics at Stubbadub.

• UPDATE: Bit late with his one but here’s Mike Patton with Tom Jone and tour manager Tim Moss in New Zealand.
  
• UPDATE: Sydney poster now on sale at Secret Serpents.
• The Pinkpop Festival in Holland announced its lineup today and Faith No More, despite being strongly rumoured to be appearing at the Dutch festival, were conspicuous by their absence. However, all hope is not lost as the May festival still has ten big names to reveal. And Dutch broadcaster RTL is still suggesting that Faith No More may yet be added to the bill.
• Finally some good video of Faith No More performing A Small Victory.
  
• And A little Sir Duke during Midlife Crisis
  
• An awesome shot from news.com.au of Faith No More at Soundwave Sydney
  
• And there are some great shots on Flickr too:
  
• Mike Patton icon of rock, according to this excellent piece from Consequence of Sound. Sample quote: “So, why is Patton an Icon of Rock? Two main reasons: he is indeed a phenomenal vocalist, but he is also the epitome of the anti-rock star. According to Faith No More band mate Roddy Bottum, Patton’s “only drug is caffeine”. He loathes the overzealous and greedy lifestyles of more famous rock “icons”.”
• According to Patton Archivio, a Mike Patton interview will soon be appearing at the Rock Midgets site. We’ll post more details when we have them.
• Long-term fansite mikepatton.de is back up and running and looking good.

Courtesy of a a very welcome message from Simon in the comments, I have been alerted to the existence of the superb FNM.com YouTube channel.

The channel features the essential MTV Angel Dust sessions video, an education for FNM fans of course but also for music fans in general on the studio workings of a band on the up. Enjoy Jim in his prime, Billy the musical director, Mike P on guitar, Puffy relaxing, Roddy being kept very busy and the major v minor battle in this seminal 12-part series.

Link fixed. Thanks for pointing it out.

As you know FNM’s presale for the Warfield gig on 14 April and the added Warfield gig on 13 April sold out in a nanosecond. But don’t despair, the full release of tickets is still scheduled to take place on Sunday morning at 10am PST.

Here is the Ticketmaster link.

Oh, and a quick word of congratulations to all the regular (and new) commenters and visitors who have snaffled San Fran tickets – really looking forward to your song-by-song updates during the shows! Such a shame FNM are so unpopular in the States! And thanks also to all of you who have contributed travel advice