Imaginos - Tour

Tour

Blue Öyster Cult interrupted their schedule of US shows only just before the album release in June 1988, to familiarize the band members with the new material. The 1987 formation with Bloom, Roeser, Lanier, Rogers and Riddle remained the closest available to a full reunion, given J. Bouchard's unwillingness to participate and the opposition to A. Bouchard. The Imaginos Tour began in the East Coast of the US in July, and continued on to most of the States. The set lists were based mainly on old material and included only two or three songs from Imaginos, usually "I Am the One You Warned Me Of", "In the Presence of Another World" and the new version of "Astronomy". Blue Öyster Cult visited Canada in January 1989, France in February, the United Kingdom in March, and concluded their European tour in Germany in April.

During the following US tour, the new management of Columbia Records, which had been sold to Sony Music in 1988, terminated Columbia's almost 20-year relationship with Blue Öyster Cult because of their low sales. This left them without a recording contract for the next ten years. Eric Bloom stated that "in general, CBS was straight with us, when we had fans working inside the company", but after "3-4 different Presidents of the company came and went" the commercial appeal of Blue Öyster Cult had disappeared for the new management.

A review of their performance at The Ritz in New York on 6 January 1989 highlights the good shape and musicianship of the band, but remarks that the new songs were played with considerably less enthusiasm than the rest of the show. Although the band continued to tour regularly, the songs from Imaginos had already disappeared from their shows by the end of 1989, never to be performed live again.