Weezer's golden era has arrived, and the beloved rock band shared some of the shine in a late-night television performance. Rivers Cuomo and company appeared on NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in a performance that aired Wednesday night (19 August), the eve of the band's self-titled album release, also known as The Gold Album (via Reprise/Warner Records).
Cuomo came to entertain and dressed for the theme. For a performance of the song "We Might as Well Be Strangers" from the gold album, the band's leader dressed entirely in gold from head to toe, including gold trousers, jacket, bow tie, top hat, and completed with makeup that looked as if he had had a confrontation with James Bond villain Goldfinger. Cuomo stayed in character when he and bandmate Patrick Wilson sat down to chat with Fallon.
After celebrating the 30th anniversary of their debut album in 2024 with a major sold-out tour alongside The Flaming Lips and Dinosaur Jr. as opening acts, the band reunited in Orange County to focus on songwriting and recording. Klas Ahlund and Kenneth Blume (known as Kenny Beats) took on production duties, and the quartet got to work. "What you hear on the record is something that could only be created by humans who come together and are vulnerable and create something together," Cuomo told Fallon about the new album. "It simply cannot be created by artificial intelligence or by someone working alone on a computer."
The Gold project, the seventh in Weezer's series of colour-coded self-titled albums, launches Friday, 21 August, marking the band's sixteenth studio album since their 1994 debut Weezer (Blue Album). The band will support the new release with the Weezer: The Gathering tour, which begins in September with performances across North America. "The Gathering is about summoning wizards from all corners of the world to come," Cuomo told Fallon. "And I think this tour is something like that. We're summoning all the different types of Weezer fans from around the world to come rock with us."
