The Residents Announce First-Ever Eskimo Live Tour

Avant-garde pioneers The Residents have announced their long-awaited Eskimo Live! Tour, a full theatrical staging of their seminal 1979 album Eskimo, performed live for the first time in the band’s 50+ year history. The 12-city North American tour kicks off January 8, 2026 in Vancouver, BC, with tickets on sale Friday, October 3rd at 10am local time.

A landmark in experimental music, Eskimo abandoned lyrics and traditional song forms in favor of chilling sound collages, imagined Inuit rituals, and surreal storytelling. Long interpreted as a scathing satire of cultural appropriation and Western imperialism, the album blends bone-chilling drones, fictional ethnography, and absurdist performance into something wholly unique. Its influence has echoed across the decades — but the band has never brought it to the stage.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness one of the most mysterious and influential groups in modern music history perform their most radical album in full,” says The Cryptic Corporation, who manage the band’s affairs.

The tour comes after renewed creative momentum for The Residents, including 2025’s Doctor Dark — a genre-bending modern opera blending metal, classical, and horror, hailed as one of their boldest works in decades.

But Eskimo remains a Rosetta Stone in The Residents' legacy, a surreal, satirical masterwork that has lived in myth for over four decades.

THE RESIDENTS  –  ESKIMO LIVE! TOUR 2026

January 8 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom

January 10 – Seattle, WA – Neptune

January 11 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom

January 14 – San Francisco – Palace of Fine Arts

January 15 – San Diego, CA – Belly Up

January 18 – Tempe, AZ – The Marquee

January 20 – Denver, CO – Oriental Theatre

January 22 – Chicago, IL – Park West

January 24 – Toronto, ON – Danforth Music Hall

January 25 – Montreal, QC – Le National

January 27 – Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall