Relient K will celebrate the 10th anniversary of Mmhmm this fall with a 33-date tour featuring Blondfire and From Indian Lakes.
The tour begins Oct. 30 at the Mercury Ballroom in Louisville, Kentucky, and concludes Dec. 12 at the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville. Tickets go on sale Friday, Aug. 1.
Released Nov. 2, 2004, Mmhmm marked a significant turning point for Relient K. The band’s fourth full-length album debuted at No. 15 on the Billboard 200 and later earned gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America.
More importantly, it was the record that carried Relient K beyond the pop-punk and Christian music audiences that had already adopted the band.
“Be My Escape” became Relient K’s first song to reach the Billboard Hot 100 and earned its own gold certification. The album also produced “Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been,” while deeper cuts such as “I So Hate Consequences,” “More Than Useless” and “Life After Death and Taxes” helped make Mmhmm more than a collection with two unusually durable singles.
The album found Matt Thiessen and company becoming sharper writers without abandoning the humor, velocity and strategic deployment of unnecessary consonants that had defined the band’s earlier records. Its songs could still move at pop-punk speed, but the writing had grown more willing to sit with regret, doubt and the consequences of becoming an adult before feeling particularly qualified for the job.
A decade later, Mmhmm remains the album many listeners use as the dividing line between Relient K’s early years and the broader alternative-rock career that followed.
The anniversary tour comes a year after the release of Collapsible Lung, Relient K’s seventh studio album. That record debuted in the Top 20 of the Billboard 200 and reached No. 1 on the iTunes album chart, but its polished pop approach represented a considerable departure from the guitars and tightly wound arrangements of Mmhmm.
Revisiting the 2004 album should therefore involve more than placing a round-number birthday candle on an old record. It gives the band an opportunity to return to the songs that helped turn Relient K from a successful scene favorite into an act capable of appearing on mainstream radio, MTV and late-night television without suddenly pretending it had never written a song called “May the Horse Be With You.”
Blondfire and From Indian Lakes will open the tour.
Relient K’s Mmhmm 10th Anniversary Tour Dates
- Oct. 30 — Louisville, Ky. — Mercury Ballroom
- Oct. 31 — Cincinnati — Bogart’s
- Nov. 1 — Chicago — House of Blues
- Nov. 2 — Minneapolis — Mill City Nights
- Nov. 4 — Denver — Summit Music Hall
- Nov. 5 — Salt Lake City — The Complex
- Nov. 7 — Seattle — The Neptune
- Nov. 8 — Portland, Ore. — Roseland Theater
- Nov. 9 — Sacramento, Calif. — Assembly
- Nov. 11 — San Francisco — Slim’s
- Nov. 12 — West Hollywood, Calif. — House of Blues
- Nov. 13 — San Diego — House of Blues
- Nov. 14 — Pomona, Calif. — The Glass House
- Nov. 15 — Las Vegas — Hard Rock
- Nov. 16 — Phoenix — Nile Theater
- Nov. 18 — Tulsa, Okla. — Cain’s Ballroom
- Nov. 19 — Dallas — House of Blues
- Nov. 20 — Austin, Texas — Emo’s
- Nov. 21 — Houston — House of Blues
- Nov. 22 — New Orleans — House of Blues
- Nov. 24 — Jacksonville, Fla. — Freebird Live
- Nov. 25 — Orlando, Fla. — House of Blues
- Nov. 26 — Atlanta — The Masquerade
- Nov. 28 — Charlotte, N.C. — The Fillmore
- Nov. 29 — Saxapahaw, N.C. — Haw River Ballroom
- Nov. 30 — Silver Spring, Md. — The Fillmore
- Dec. 2 — Philadelphia — Theatre of Living Arts
- Dec. 3 — Boston — Paradise Rock Club
- Dec. 4 — New York — Gramercy Theatre
- Dec. 5 — Pittsburgh — Altar Bar
- Dec. 6 — Columbus, Ohio — Newport Music Hall
- Dec. 9 — Grand Rapids, Mich. — The Intersection
- Dec. 10 — Detroit — St. Andrew’s Hall
- Dec. 11 — Indianapolis — Deluxe at Old National Centre
- Dec. 12 — Nashville — Cannery Ballroom