Foals have promised to play rarities and songs that they ‘haven’t played for a very long time’ on their upcoming 2017 tour dates.

As well as a handful of European festival shows this summer, the band will also play London’s Citadel Festival and and the Eden Project in Cornwall – and it looks like fans can expect a few surprises in the setlist.

“For our own enjoyment, we’re gonna play songs that we haven’t played before – or haven’t played for a very long time,” frontman Yannis Philippakis told Radio X. “Some of the material is pretty recent and some of it goes back to 2007. We want to try and play a pretty fresh set and air out some songs that don’t normally get a chance to be heard.”


He continued: “We’ve all picked the songs we want to do, but I’m pretty sure it is gonna to conjure up some old war wounds.”

Speaking of what song he’s most looking forward to, Yannis said: “I’m excited to play Black Gold [from 2010’s ‘Total Life Forever’] because it was always my favourite off the first couple of records. We did play it a couple of times when we were touring Total Life Forever, but never really got it off the ground. I wanna be able to do it justice this time ‘round.”

Asked about progress on new material, Yannis replied: “There are just bits and bobs at the moment, But I wanna get bored again and then be itching to do it. I don’t want writing to be just routine.”

Asked if they would showcase new material at the shows, Yannis told NME: “I think yeah, it’s more likely to be that. I can’t tell if we’ll have written anything new by then. “I’ve been writing with Tony Allen, Fela Kuti’s drummer. I started doing some tracks with him last year and then I was on tour. So I went back to finish them in Paris. So he’s writing a record and hopefully some of the tracks we’ve been working on will be on that album.”