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.

• There are still tickets on sale for the Faith No More gig a the Warfield, San Francisco on 12 April. Get your’s here.
• The show times for FNM’s Sydney show on 22 February have been released by the Horden Pavilion:
  7.00 – Doors
  7.45 -8.30 – Eagles of Death Metal
  9.00-11.00 – Faith No More
• Former Faith No More frontman Chuck Mosley plays a free show in Cleveland this Friday. More here.
• Late with this as there is some debate over whether this really is a Patton Facebook page but the latest update is on Mondo Cane: “Mondo Cane is finally mastered! Whew! Now to get busy on the artwork. Soon, soon! Thank you for all recent the birthday wishes.”
• Lost Angel Dust song (music starts around 44 seconds in)
  

Billy and Roddy have just tweeted that Faith No More will play another show at the Warfield in San Francisco on 12 April after having already announced shows for the 13 and 14 April:

RODDYBOTTUM Hey!!! We’ve added a THIRD Warfield show! Monday the 12th, the third and final SF show. On sale now!

MRGOULD You know what? We’re adding a THIRD Warfield show: April 12!!!!

Tickets for the new show are on sale NOW.

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

Bill and Roddy have tweeted details of the presale for the band’s first US show in 13 years at the Warfield in San Francisco on 14 April.
Tickets will go on sale via Ticketmaster at 9am PST with Bill and Roddy tweeting the password at 8.50am.
As I’m relaunching a huge sport site in ten languages at around that time in my day job today I am not have the password here so you’re best following Bill and Roddy if you don’t already.

I know some people want to keep news of this date low-key but we’re an equal opportunities blog so here’s a few more details of the Faith No More gig at the Warfield on 14 April.
From Bill Gould’s tweet:
MRGOULD Tix for Warfield go on sale Friday morning at 10 am. There will be a special presale for fans at 9am. Password coming..check this space!
Also you can check out the seating chart and plan your ticket attack on the Goldenvoice site.

It does now seem that fans who want to see Faith No More at the Coachella festival on 17 April will have to shell out $269 for a three-day pass. Tickets go on sale on 22 January at 10am from the Coachella site and a number of local record stores. The Coachella site notes: “Every person entering festival area, including camp sites, must have a festival pass. A festival pass is ONE wristband for the entire weekend. A 3-day pass ticket will be exchanged for a single wristband upon entry to the event grounds.”
So, it does look like here will be no single-day tickets for the event for the first time.

In other ticket news, no update yet on when and where tickets for Faith No More’s extra 24 February date will be available but it should not be too far from Ticketmaster.

While the announcement that Faith No More will play the Coachella festival on 17 April was the news their United States fans have meeting waiting for, the re-formed rockers’ sub-headlining slot and the media reaction to the overall line-up is more sobering, illustrating perhaps why the FNM reunion has shunned a return home so far.

Initial news reports have focused more on the headliners Jay-Z, Muse and Gorillaz plus Thom Yorke and even Sly and the Family Stone. The fact that their desert date marks their return to live shows in the US – warm-up gig aside – since 1997. Enough caviling; below is a brief round-up to the Coachella announcement with a Faith No More focus:

• Los Angeles Times – Ann Powers alludes to “Faith No More’s arty take on frat-boy rap rock”, terming the line-up “a model for recessionary times”.
• E! (can’t forget that !) Online – E! somehow concludes that the lineup is one for the kids with FNM – “ who will resurrect their classic ’80s Epic sound” – relegated to the final paragraph.
• New York Times – A NYT blog goes one better and manages to avoid mentioning Faith No More at all.
• Noisecreep – Metal site Noisecreep hit the right tone, noting that “recently reunited Faith No More are confirmed for the second night of this year’s installment. It will be the first time since the band announced its reunion early last year that they’ll play on U.S. soil.”

And that is pretty much it. Maybe we’ll get more reaction tomorrow. For dedicated FNM fans the big question, of course, is when will the band’s other US dates be announced and will there be a Coachella warm-up date in San Francisco.

On the day that Faith No More announced their return to the stage in the United States (at Coachella on 17 April), here’s a look back at their last American live appearance, which took place at the Moore Theatre, Seattle on 11 October 1997.

Thanks to the excellent Stefan Negele gig database, here’s the setlist:

Setlist (8:57-10:23):

1. Midnight Cowboy*
2. Collision
3. Mid-Life Crisis
4. Last Cup of Sorrow
5. The Gentle Art of Making Enemies**
6. Evidence
7. Easy
8. Introduce Yourself
9. Ugly in the Morning**
10. Mouth to Mouth
11. Home Sick Home
12. Ashes to Ashes
13. King For a Day
14. Pristina
15. Epic
16. Naked in Front of the Computer
17. Just a Man
    Encore 1
18. Land of Sunshine
19. We Care a Lot
20. I Started a Joke
    Encore 2
21. “This Guy’s in Love with You” (Burt Bacharach)

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to track down any video from the show but here’s some details from Stefan’s site:
“Highlights were “MidLife Crisis” (after which Mike said “aren’t you Seattle folks sick of being called ‘grunge city’… you’re really Starbuck’s City!”…he said “thank you Starbucks” at the end of several tunes during the set)…a killer “Last Cup of Sorrow”…a great “Easy”->”Introduce Yourself” juxtaposition…an insane “Ugly in the Morning”… Roddy’s eastern keyboardisms during “Mouth to Mouth”… an epic “Ashes to Ashes”…and an emotional set-closing “Just a Man”. The first encore “Land of Sunshine” was worth the ticket price for me (I think they’ve only played it a couple times on the whole tour…) Mike didn’t sing the “does life seem worthwhile” chorus but instead ranted like a maniac. (As usual Mike was amazing, jumping, crouching, babbling, shrieking, blowing his voice out and acting like a total madman onstage). The Bee Gees cover “I Started a Joke” was sung in Anthony Newley-type tones. And the sold out crowd got the band back for a final cover, the Burt Bacharach cover “This Guy’s in Love with You”, on which Mike ended the tune again on melodica (giving the show a nice symmetry).”