While nowadays they make headlines more for their political activism, Massive Attack are still one of the most respected electronic acts in the UK, and they still love a good live show. The Bristol trip-hop duo have today announced a run of 5 live shows across Europe later this year on their “xLive 2026” tour, their first European solo excursion in 7 years.
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Formed in 1988, Massive Attack sprung from Bristol’s Wild Bunch sound-system collective, part of the city’s electronic music scene throughout the 80’s. The culture brought DJing, rapping, and graffiti art together to create an underground movement that transcended the music. Currently consisting of just two members, Robert “3D” Del Naja and Grant “Daddy G” Marshall, their sound is a shifting mix of slow, atmospheric electronic music, with influence from early hiphop and an assortment of diverse vocal features. Their success has included two UK Number One Albums with ‘Mezzanine’ in 1998 and ‘100th Window’ in 2003, as well as winning Best British Dance Act at the 1996 Brit Awards.
The collective have a reputation for speaking out on global issues, especially climate change, conflict and corporate greed. Their website is a testament to this, ditching the usual news and tour information in favour of displaying their mission statement on their crusade to reduce the environmental impact of live shows. One of their most high-profile cases was last year’s run in with music streaming giant Spotify. In September, they started by signing onto the protest movement “No Music For Genocide”, which requested that streaming services cease from allowing their music to be played in Israel, due to the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Gaza. They then took things further by motioning that Spotify remove their full discography altogether, after it was revealed their billionaire CEO Daniel Ek was investing money in a weapons company linked to Israel.
After a five year break, Del Naja and Marshall returned to playing live in 2024, holding a “Climate Change Accelerator” show in their home city Bristol that August, where they worked with local businesses to reduce the carbon footprint of the event. On their website, they say “the Bristol show is widely predicted to be the lowest carbon show of its size ever staged”, and express intent to continue this ethos into all of their future shows.
Until this morning, their 2026 plans only consisted of appearances at Primavera Sound festivals in both Barcelona and Portugal this June. They announced the new European dates earlier in a post on social media, their first headline tour on the continent since 2019. Stopping over May and June in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Belgium, the full run of the tour looks like this:
• Veikkaus Arena, Helsinki – 27/05
• Dalhalla, Rättvik – 30/05
• Royal Arena, Copenhagen – 01/06
• Zitadelle, Berlin – 07/06
• Forest National, Brussels – 08/06
While there is no announcement for British shows, fans can still hope for at least something this year. Speaking to NME in 2024, when asked about future releases Del Naja said “We do have some new music which we’ve been sitting on for four years… dispute at the label – that’s a different article altogether.” Whatever the drama, there appears to have been a breakthrough since, as Massive Attack shared a post last November revealing their intent to release “a cache of work created in the recent past” at some point in 2026.
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