Stephen Colbert isn’t going quietly off the airwaves. No, the venerated late-night talkshow host is going out with a series of bangs, including a late-night performance by Foo Fighters on Wednesday, and more recently The Strokes.
On Thursday night (May 14), the indie rockers set the tempo to cool for their Late Show premiere of “Falling Out of Love.” On set, Julian Casablancas and his bandmates enjoyed their own, personal stages, each of them lit and outlined with lasers, all of it set against a backdrop of classic stock images of the United States, its small towns, bright lights and natural delights.
With its unusual, heavily Auto-tuned vocals, “Falling Out of Love” is the second cut for the New Yorkers’ forthcoming seventh studio album Reality Awaits, due out on June 26, their first since 2020’s The New Abnormal.
The band will march on with their Reality Awaits 2026 tour, which gets underway June 12 at Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Tennessee and wraps up Sept. 20 at Sea.Hear.Now Festival in New Jersey.
After North America, the global jaunt will visit the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, South America and Japan. While on the road, the band will stop by for multiple nights at Red Rocks, London’s The O2, plus Toronto’s RBC Amphitheatre, Paris’ Accor Arena, Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome and more. Support acts will include Thundercat, Cage the Elephant, Hamilton Leithauser, Fat White Family, The Garden, Alex Cameron, Geordie Greep, Promiseland and ÖLÜM.
“Falling out of Love” follows “Going Shopping,” the first single from Reality Awaits, which was recorded in Costa Rica with producer Rick Rubin and finished in studios around the world.
Colbert is in his last stretch in charge of The Late Show, which CBS is pulling the plug on due to what the network has described as “a purely financial” decision. The Strokes are among an elite lineup of final guests, including Foo Fighters, Chris Stapleton, President Barack Obama, Tom Hanks, and a special gathering of late-night hosts: Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver.
The series finale airs May 21 on CBS at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT.
Watch The Strokes’ performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert below.
