Minus The Bear announce ‘Menos El Oso’ 20th anniversary tour

Minus The Bear recently announced that they’d be returning from their nearly-seven-year hiatus to perform 2005’s Menos El Oso in full (and more) at Best Friends Forever fest for its 20th anniversary, and now they’ve announced an extensive tour celebrating the album. Guitarist David Knudson says:

Menos el Oso put us on a trajectory that none of us were expecting. There is a “before ‘Pachuca Sunrise’ video” moment in time, and then there is an “after ‘Pachuca Sunrise’ video” moment in time. It seemed like once people heard that song, and saw that video, everyone went straight to Limewire, Napster, Soulseek, BitTorrent, etc. and shared the album immediately. Celebrating the twentieth anniversary of something this monumental in our lives is a gift. Having the chance to appreciate it with our fans, families and fellow bandmates while we are all alive and kicking is an opportunity I can’t wait to embrace.

The tour begins in Portland, shortly before BFF fest, and it includes two-night stands in multiple cities, including LA, NYC, Chicago, Denver, and the band’s birthplace of Seattle. The NYC stops are at Brooklyn Steel on November 7 and Irving Plaza on November 8. Pre-sales begin Wednesday (3/12) and the general public on-sale begins Friday (3/14) at 10 AM local time. All dates are listed below.

We put Menos El Oso at #2 in our list of Minus The Bear albums, ranked, and we said: As a lyricist, Jake had fully hit his stride on Menos El Oso. The songs are so vivid, so imagery-inducing, and he makes all the tiny parts of life feel huge. He turns everyday moments into poetry (“A swimming pool with no bodies is a problem that we can fix”), he puts care into the carefree (“This is a city for not sleeping, the clocks are set by feel”), and conversations play out like movie dialogs (“‘Come on man,’ she said, ‘We have to leave this town/I can’t stand another day without the rain'”). As he lays out his stories, the band crafts one stunning backdrop after the next. Songs go from dancey to mathy to rockin’ at the drop of a hat, and Minus The Bear sound totally in the pocket at every turn. Guitars can be shimmering and beautiful, or tech-y and mind-bending. They sound like a band who love punk as much as they love funk, without ever fitting neatly into either one, and you get a small taste of the prog influences that would get fully explored on Planet of Ice too. Some songs feel anxious and jittery, others feel smooth and chill. On Menos El Oso, Minus The Bear’s unique blend of influences had come together so seamlessly that it became fully impossible to try to shoehorn them into any individual genre of music. They were just Minus The Bear, and they were very, very good at being that.

Along with the tour announcement, MTB put out a new video for the Menos El Oso classic “Drilling.” Check it out:

Minus The Bear — Menos El Oso 20th Anniversary Tour Dates
10/04/25 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
10/06/25 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
10/07/25 – San Francisco, CA @ Regency Ballroom
10/08/25 – San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park
10/10/25 – Las Vegas, NV @ Best Friends Forever Festival
10/11/25 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Belasco
10/12/25 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Belasco
10/14/25 – Tempe, AZ @ Marquee Theatre
10/17/25 – Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater
10/18/25 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s Austin
10/21/25 – Orlando, FL @ The Beacham
10/22/25 – Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
10/24/25 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore
10/25/25 – Boston, MA @ House of Blues
11/05/25 – Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club
11/07/25 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
11/08/25 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
11/11/25 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Roxian Theatre
11/12/25 – Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues
11/14/25 – Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre
11/15/25 – Chicago, IL @ Metro
11/16/25 – Chicago, IL @ Metro
11/18/25 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
11/21/25 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
11/22/25 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
11/23/25 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
11/28/25 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
11/29/25 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox