Galactic will celebrate one decade together with the launch of the Ten Year Invasion tour on October 26th in Crystal Bay, Nevada.

"I feel really fortunate that we've been able to keep the band together this long," bassist Robert Mercurio says. "We were on the bus a few months ago and somebody said, 'It feels like we've been on the road forever.' And someone replied 'It's been, like, ten years.' It doesn't feel like ten years."

The jazz-funk quintet formed in 1994 after guitarist Jeff Raines and Mercurio relocated from Washington D.C. to New Orleans. Inspired by the culture and musicianship of the city, they recruited saxophonists Ben Ellman, keyboardist Rich Vogel and drummer Stanton Moore, among others -- Galactic have ranged from a five-to-eight piece -- and released six albums, most recently 2003's Ruckus.

Galactic originally planned tenth-anniversary shows at New Orleans' famed Tipitina's on September 9th and 10th, but were forced to cancel in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

"The thing that was going to be so special about those shows is we were gonna have tons of New Orleans special guests every night, from Allen Toussaint to George Porter, Jr. to Bo Dollis," Mercurio says. "Now they're all displaced, and I don't know that there'll be a city that we could all reconvene in. We'll celebrate once the city's built up again."

The band members, who were in Seattle when the hurricane ravaged their city, suffered damage to their homes and could only watch the devastation unfold on television. "The city's never going to be the same, which is amazingly sad," Mercurio says. "I've gotten emails and messages from our friends all over the world and everybody's been so thoughtful. I feel New Orleans has a really special place in people's hearts."

Galactic U.S. tour dates:

10/26: Crystal Bay, NV, Crystal Bay Club
10/27: Petaluma, CA, The Mystic
10/28: Santa Cruz, CA, The Catalyst
10/29: San Francisco, The Fillmore
10/30: Las Vegas, The Joint/House of Blues
10/31: Austin, TX, Stubb's
11/3: Cincinnati, OH, Bogart's
11/4: Detroit, The Majestic
11/5: Columbus, OH, Newport Hall
11/8: Burlington, VT, Higher Ground
11/9: Providence, RI, Lupo's
11/10: New Haven, CT, Toad's Place
11/11: New York, Irving Plaza
11/12: New York, Irving Plaza
11/14: Charlottesville, VA, Starr Hill
11/15: Baltimore, Recher Theatre
11/16: Boston, Paradise Rock Club
11/17: Philadelphia, Theatre of the Living
11/18: Washington, DC, 9:30 Club
11/19: Washington, DC, 9:30 Club