Cranberries reunite for tour after seven years

DUBLIN (Reuters Life!) - Irish rock band The Cranberries will reunite after a near seven-year break for a tour in North America and Europe with some new songs and old hits like "Zombie" and "Linger."

In January singer Dolores O'Riordan performed together with some former band members in Dublin for the first time since the band from the western city of Limerick broke up in 2003.

They met again at O'Riordan's new home in Canada at the christening of her son Taylor.

"Never officially broken up, the band instead has been on hiatus, and being in the same room and playing music together for the first time made them realize how much they had missed each other," the www.cranberries.com website said.

The Cranberries, one of the most successful Irish bands of recent times, was formed in the early 1990s. It will begin its tour in North America toward the end of the year and continue in Europe in early 2010, the website said.

The Irish Times newspaper said the tour would start in Toronto in mid-November.

"We lost contact with each other," O'Riordan told the paper, adding that she was "tickled silly" by the thought of recording a new album again with the band.

"We were always friends, but I wouldn't be hanging around with them offstage. They're real lad's lads. What was I going to talk to them about? Breastfeeding?"

(Reporting by Andras Gergely)