Arcade Fire To Make Surprise Appearance At Coachella; Replace Foo Fighters At Osheaga

With April 15 marking the first day of Coachella, Arcade Fire is surprising fans by becoming a last-minute addition to the festival’s lineup. The announcement that Arcade Fire would be making an appearance in the desert was made on Thursday, April 14, the day before the band is set to perform at the Mojave tent in-between sets from Carly Rae Jepsen and IDLES.

The band will also be replacing Foo Fighters as headliners at Osheaga in Canada on July 29. Arcade Fire will close out the first day of the event, with A$AP Rocky and Dua Lipa serving as the festival’s two other headliners.

“When the Foo Fighters unfortunately had to cancel, it was extremely important to us that we book a band that means something special to our local music fans as well as an artist that would appeal to a huge fan base internationally,” Nick Farkas, founder of Osheaga, said in a statement. “We are thrilled that our local hometown heroes Arcade Fire were able to step in and fill the void. The band put on one of the most memorable headline sets in Osheaga history in 2010, and having them back for our 15th anniversary will be really special.”

Arcade Fire shared on their Instagram account that their Osheaga set will be dedicated to late Foo Fighters drummer, Taylor Hawkins.

“I considered Taylor from the Foo Fighters a friend,” Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler said in a statement. “He was always so sweet and so musical, and we’re gonna be dedicating our performance at Osheaga to him. And we can’t wait to see all of you, take care of each other.”

Arcade Fire’s Coachella appearance was also revealed on social media, with Butler sharing a post in front of a palm tree captioned, “Decided to spend my birthday somewhere warm and dry.”

Arcade Fire reunited as a full band for the first time in more than two years last month to benefit the Plus 1 Ukraine relief fund at the Toulouse Theatre in New Orleans.

When the band went on tour in 2018, their two nights at the Greek Theatre At UC Berkeley in Berkeley, Calif. on Sept. 21 and 22 grossed a combined $966,340, according to reports submitted to Pollstar’s Boxoffice. That same tour saw the band performing one night at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre, selling 5,446 tickets and grossing $522,258.