Alex Henry Foster on European Tour: The High Blooming Ritual
NEWS SOURCE: Hopeful Tragedy Records
September 4, 2025
The Ino-Rock Festival hosted the kickoff of the tour on August 23 in Poland, where Foster has enjoyed longstanding support from the OFF control program on Polish National Radio III, Trójka. This opening marks a symbolic first step in a series of headline concerts featuring alongside local acts.
Having already dazzled audiences earlier this summer at the Midsummer Prog Festival in the Netherlands, Foster once again evokes deep emotion with The High Blooming Ritual tour, redefining what it means to merge art-rock, noise-rock, emotional vulnerability, and a shared cathartic experience. Alex Henry Foster & The Long Shadows reaffirm their place among the most daring and profoundly human live acts of our time—transforming every stage into a sanctuary where music becomes both wound and healing.
Foster, who remains uncertain about future touring plans due to his fragile health condition, shared:
“There’s something about being on a stage that defies explanation… A sacred place where we all get to live, bloom, and breathe together… Unafraid, unmasked… As we are, simply.
And now, it’s time again. I’m heading back on the road for what promises to be an intimate and emotionally boundless tour, and I can’t wait to commune those emotions with you. Let me know where I’ll be seeing you!”
In an interview with Le Journal de Québec, which highlights the success of his albums Kimiyo and A Measure of Shape and Sounds—both ranking on the 2024 sales charts alongside Les Cowboys Fringants and Taylor Swift—Alex discusses his upcoming project, which he will carry out in collaboration with the organization World Central Kitchen to help alleviate famine in Palestine:
“Many people in the artistic community talk a lot [about the situation in Gaza], but are very little in concrete action. For my part, having already worked with Amnesty International and been involved in a thousand and one things, I like to be in the real, not just promoting oneself through a cause.”
Sep. 5 – Veruno (IT) @ 2Days Prog + 1 Festival
Sep. 7 – Maastricht (NL) @ Zero for Three Festival
Nov. 12 – Utrecht (NL) @ De Helling
Nov. 13 – Breda (NL) @ Mezz
Nov. 14 – Cologne (DE) @ Yard Club
Nov. 15 – Neunkirchen (DE) @ Gloomaar Festival
Nov. 16 – Bocholt (BE) @ De Kouter
TRACKLISTING
1. Up Til Dawn – Live in Köln (11:54)
2. I’m Afraid – Live in Köln (10:13)
3. The Son of Hannah – Live in Köln (9:20)
4. The Pain That Bonds – Live in Köln (16:41)
ALEX HENRY FOSTER BIO
Alex Henry Foster (AHF) is a Canadian musician, author, producer, and composer, formerly the frontman for Juno Awards nominee post-rock/noise band Your Favorite Enemies (YFE).
Hailed as an “unforeseen DIY artist” by Rolling Stone Magazine, Alex Henry Foster released his first solo album, “Windows in the Sky”, in Canada in 2018 and globally in 2020. Mostly written during an exile from himself in Tangier following his father’s passing, “Windows in the Sky” is a “dreamy blast of post-rock” (NME) that “brings to my mind artists like Hammock and Asche & Spencer, with heaping helpings of Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky” (BrooklynVegan).
Fierce human rights advocate, Foster has been a very active public speaker over the last decade, commenting on racism, the proliferation of street gangs – in the midst of which he spent his teenage years — the resurgence of populism and extremism. He teamed up with Amnesty International and War Child for several campaigns initiating sensibilization awareness towards children soldiers and also created The Hope Project following the Tohoku Tsunami of 2011.
Foster spent 2024 touring Europe and America around the release of two albums and an EP. He just came back from Tangier, Morocco, where he spent 4 months working on an upcoming release.
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