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Mumford & Sons could have done the usual promotional run to get fans hyped for their upcoming Rushmere album, the folk rock trio’s first in seven years. And while singer Marcus Mumford will surely sit down for some interviews and the band have booked a run of intimate promo gigs in New York and the U.K. through April 3, one of the things the group’s frontman tells Billboard they wanted to do this time around was find a way to deeply connect with fans where they already are.
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“We’re full of songs at the moment — we spent two years in the studio writing [and] this first batch is Rushmere — and it’s encapsulating the spirit of our band in a lot of ways. That made us look back a bit at some of the collaborations we’ve had, some of the records we’ve made, EPs… it’s a lot of music,” says Mumford of the group’s half dozen EPs and four studio albums since 2008.
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So, with their follow-up to 2018’s Delta due out on Friday (March 28), Mumford, bassist/drummer Ted Dwane and keyboard player Ben Lovett will help celebrate Tuesday’s (March 25) launch of their first dedicated SiriusXM channel, Mumford & Sons Radio, with a special event for their die-hards. On Thursday (March 27), the trio will give North American fans a chance to call in and ask questions during a live Q&A session, followed by a live performance in the SiriusXM studios.
“When the SiriusXM team suggested it we leapt at it,” Mumford says of the channel he promises will feature hand-picked songs from across the band’s catalog, as well as some of their favorite collaborations with artists including The National’s Aaron Dessner on the Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil,” and “special moments” with Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell, among others.
“It was fun to look through our previous recordings, like, ‘oh s–t! I forgot about that song!’,” Mumford says of the culling process. “But we had to draw lines through some of [the songs] because you can’t put them all on.” The limited-run channel is the latest such offering from the satellite radio giant, joining temporary ones from Mary J. Blige and Lady Gaga earlier this month, as well as quick-hit channels featuring the music of Maxwell in February and Billy Joel in January.
“We put some real effort into it… we sat down to talk about our songs for far too long!,” says Mumford about the band interviews that will be featured on the channel along with DJ sets in which he can geek out over playing favorite artists such as Mk.gee and talk about how much he loves Gracie Abrams and Kendrick Lamar. There will also be some pleasant surprises, including songs Lamar producer Sounwave worked on for Mumford’s self-titled 2022 solo album.
“There are also some heavier moments, like when we really plug in and go electric with Gang of Youths, or we do a cover version of Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Hurt’ via Johnny Cash and then plugged back in again,” Mumford promises of the surprises that will pop up alongside songs by other artists that have influenced and inspired the group. The channel will also tap into Mumford & Sons’ long association with SiriusXM with replays of their 2015 SiriusXM exclusive performance at New York City’s McKittrick Hotel, their 2019 show at Stephen Talkhouse in the Hamptons and other in-studio sets from over the years.
Mumford & Sons Radio will be available in cars on channel 79 through April 8 and on the SiriusXM app through April 24.
Stephen Graham has said that he was left in tears after receiving a message from Bruce Springsteen, who praised the British actor for his performance in Deliver Me From Nowhere. The upcoming biopic, which stars Jeremy Allen White as a young Springsteen, follows the seminal artist during the making of his 1982 LP Nebraska, with Graham playing the Boss’ late father, Douglas “Dutch” Springsteen.
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After filming wrapped, Springsteen shared an emotional exchange with Graham. He texted the Adolescence star to let him know that his turn as his father, with whom he had a complex relationship, had moved him. Speaking on Edith Bowman’s Soundtracking podcast, Graham said Springsteen had sent him “the most gorgeous texts I’ve ever had in my life”. He went on to explain that, at one point, the role required prosthetics that he had to rip off before hopping on a flight.“I’m racing to get to the airport, and I got this text, and it was so beautiful,” Graham continued. “It just said: ‘Better than any award that I could ever receive in my life’. He’s an icon. He’s a hero. He’s a working-class hero. He’s an icon to thousands, to millions. And his text just said, ‘Thank you so much. You know, my father passed away a while ago and I felt like I saw him today and thank you for giving me that memory.’
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“I was crying reading the text, do you know what I mean?” Graham added. “Oh mate, it was beautiful. You couldn’t ask for anything more, you know, to share that with someone was gorgeous. He’s a lovely man.”He went on to reveal that Springsteen was also a fan of cult classic TV show This Is England – in which Graham plays lead antagonist Combo – and that they’d had conversations about Springsteen’s book, Born To Run, in which he detailed his complex relationship with his father.Elsewhere, Graham has received widespread praise worldwide for his work as a shell-shocked dad on the Netflix drama, Adolescence, which centers on a teenage school boy and his arrest for suspicion of murdering a female classmate.
Wet Leg performed two intimate shows in Brighton and London earlier this week (Mar. 23 and 24), ahead of their return to festival stages this summer. Over the weekend, the Isle Of Wight band – comprising Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers – teased the surprise gigs at Green Door Store and at the Moth Club in the capital via social media.
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Tickets sold out upon release, though the shows were initially announced without revealing the band’s identity and shared under the pseudonym Uma Thurman – with the caveat the real actor “will not be in attendance.” Wet Leg then confirmed their involvement by sharing a link to the Moth Club date.
According to images shared across X/Twitter, the shows saw the band play an 11-song set, including a slew of unreleased tracks, with titles including “Dragonfart,” “Beans” and “Lovestruck.”
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The live debut of new music comes after the band took to Instagram last week (Mar. 17) to announce their return, and share a 30-second teaser of upcoming material to their Stories. On stage, they donned black wigs and suit attire in the style of Thurman’s character in Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace. Watch a clip from their performance below.
The duo will follow the Brighton and London dates with two U.S. shows. They will play the Market Hotel in Brooklyn on Mar. 31 and The River in LA on Apr. 8. They are inviting fans to a pre-sale on March 28, for which further details can be found here.
Posting on Instagram they wrote: “Hey there neighbor been a while hasn’t it? Why dont u [sic] come on down to the bottom of our garden? It’s about time we had ourselves a little gathering…just a couple of special nights in NYC US and LA US.”Wet Leg’s last full-length release was their 2022 self-titled debut LP. It earned them two Grammy Awards for best alternative music album and best alternative music performance at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards. In 2023, they won a BRIT Award for group of the year, as well as scooping the best new artist prize.
Over the coming months, they are set to headline a bevy of U.K. and Irish festivals including Green Man and Wilderness, while they also have appearances confirmed for Glastonbury, TRNSMT and BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend in Liverpool.
Bruce Springsteen has joined the all-star lineup for Wednesday night’s (March 26) all-star tribute to Patti Smith. The Boss will make the trip to Carnegie Hall in New York for the sold–out People Have the Power: A Celebration of Patti Smith show celebrating the 50th anniversary of Smith legendary 1975 debut album, Horses.
In addition to Springsteen, the show will feature appearances from R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs, Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde, Sharon Van Etten, the Kills’ Alison Mosshart, director Jim Jarmusch, Scarlett Johansson, Kronos Quartet, Ben Harper, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karon O, former Sonic Youth singer/guitarist and solo performer Kim Gordon, Sean Penn, Angel Olsen, Courtney Barnett, Interpol’s Paul Banks, Maggie Rogers, Glen Hansard, Michael Shannon, Jesse Malin, The National’s Matt Berninger and others.
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The house band will be lead by Smith’s longtime bassist/keyboardist Tony Shanahan, who will be joined by Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench, Bob Dylan guitarist Charlie Sexton and Rolling Stones drummer Steve Jordan.
In addition to celebrating the Horses anniversary, the show will also mark the 20th anniversary of City Winery founder and CEO Michael Dorf’s “Music Of” series, which spotlights the work of legendary rockers and benefits nonprofit organizations focused on music education; since 2004, the annual Carnegie Hall series has donated more than $1.8 million to such groups. General admission tickets are sold out, but VIP tickets are still available here.
Springsteen and Smith’s relationship also stretches back nearly half a decade, when the Boss was struggling to figure out how to finish his song “Because the Night” and his engineer, Jimmy Iovine — who was also producing Smith’s 1978 album Easter at the time — suggested he give it to Smith. She worked it over and adding new lyrics in honor of her husband, the MC5’s Fred “Sonic” Smith, and it became her highest-charting single to date, hitting No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Smith will also be hitting the road for a Horses anniversary tour, slated to kick off in Dublin, Ireland on Oct. 6 and criss-cross Europe for a month before landing in Seattle on Nov. 10 for a run of shows that will keep her on the road through a Nov. 29 gig in Philadelphia.
Veteran rockers Foreigner have announced a Canadian leg for the ongoing Farewell Tour, but longtime vocalist Kelly Hansen won’t be fronting the outfit.
Having launched their Farewell Tour in 2023, Foreigner have since extended their run in recent years, with the trek now set to continue into November with the announcement of 13 new dates across Canada.
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However, Hansen – who joined as the band’s vocalist in 2005 – will instead be replaced by actor Geordie Brown, who is perhaps best known for his role in Foreigner’s own Jukebox Hero – The Musical. Brown originated the lead role in 2018, with a sold-out run taking place in Toronto in 2019.
Since then, he’s performed on stage to perform “Hot Blooded” with the band during their 2019 appearance in Halifax, and he was also in attendance during their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Brown will also take on the lead role in Jukebox Hero once more for its upcoming 2026 run.
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“I was most impressed by Geordie’s performances of Juke Box Hero, The Musical in Canada,” said Foreigner’s Mick Jones. “He is not only a consummate vocalist, but a verified Broadway actor to boot. We look forward to welcoming him at our shows on Foreigner’s 2025 Canadian tour.”
“I count myself so fortunate that they’re bringing me along on this next chapter with the musical, and this Canadian tour,” added Brown. “Right now, I’m most looking forward to our Halifax show, for my hometown crowd.”
Currently, no reason has been given as to why Hansen will not be joining the band on their upcoming Canadian tour.
Foreigner was first formed in 1976 by former Spooky Tooth guitarist Mick Jones, with the band releasing their self-titled debut album the following year. They topped the Billboard 200 in 1981 with the aptly-titled fourth album, 4. The record also boasted top five songs “Urgent” and “Waiting for a Girl Like You,” though they would release their highest-charting single in 1984, with “I Want to Know What Love Is” topping the Hot 100 after it was issued as the lead track from Agent Provocateur.
Various lineup changes over the years have left Jones as the only original member of the band, though he has been absent from the live stage since 2023. In October 2024, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Sammy Hagar.
Foreigner’s Canadian tour launches in St. John’s, Newfoundland on Oct. 21 and wraps in Kelowna, British Columbia on Nov. 7.
Heart’s Nancy Wilson hasn’t minced her words when it comes to the state of the world, claiming she feels “embarrassed” to call herself an American in this day and age.
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Wilson’s comments came via a new interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in which she reflected on some of Heart’s enduring singles. In the interview, Wilson noted that the band’s third single, 1975’s “Crazy on You,” was written as a critical response to the Vietnam War, though the lyrics have found themselves relevant once again.
“We were kind of embarrassed at that time to call ourselves American because of the dirty politics of the Vietnam War,” Wilson explained. “To be as subtle as possible, it’s more embarrassing now.”
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The discussion also focused on the likes of 1977’s “Barracuda,” which had been initially written about a sleazy industry figure of the time. However, with reference to an infamous quote from President Donald Trump, Wilson conceded the track “is even more relevant in the salacious billionaire culture with the grab-them-by-the-(expletive) mentality.”
“These songs will be there long after we are gone,” she added, before focusing on the contemporary prevalence of the sexism that inspired “Barracuda.”
“I think for women in the culture the pendulum will come back again, and there’ll be another renaissance in the arts to push back against the oppression of the cranky old rich white guys,” Wilson added. “I hope I am alive to see that next revolution.”
Wilson, who has served as the backbone of Heart alongside sister Ann, isn’t alone in her criticism of American politics. In 2018, Ann claimed that the Seattle band’s “Barracuda” could be used by just about any candidate in the 2020 election if they desired. “I think anybody but Trump,” she clarified.
Heart first formed in 1967, though would not take on its most recognizable form until Ann Wilson joined in 1971, with Nancy following in 1975. Debut album Dreamboat Annie was released that same year and would peak at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. The group would top the chart a decade later with their self-titled eighth album, which also featured their first Hot 100 chart-topper, “These Dreams.”
Despite numerous splits and reunions over their lifetime, Heart resumed activity in 2023, with the Wilson sisters receiving a Grammy lifetime achievement award that same year. One decade earlier, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by fellow Seattle artist Chris Cornell.
Alt-rock greats Pavement are getting the biopic treatment, but the newest trailer for the upcoming film advertises that the project is less classic biopic and more “museum,” “movie” and a “reunion.”
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In the nearly three-minute clip for Pavements, Stranger Things’ Joe Keery stars as frontman Stephen Malkmus. “It’s good for my career, maybe win an award or something,” Keery jokes at one point in the video about why he took on the role. “I can’t play Billy Joel.”
The trailer also features Nat Wolff as Scott ‘Spiral Stairs’ Kannberg, Fred Hechinger as Bob Nastanovich, Logan Miller as Mark Ibold, Griffin Newman as Steve West, and Jason Schwartzman as Matador Records’ Chris Lombardi.
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“Pavements is a movie about Pavement the band—among other things,” the official film description reads. “The latest film from acclaimed director Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell) is a documentary that may or may not be entirely true, may or may not be totally sincere, and may or may not be more about the idea of the band—or any band—than a history of the short-lived, passionately loved, commercially marginal Nineties American alternative group Pavement. This unconventional film about a highly unconventional band incorporates a stage musical, rock biopic, gallery exhibition, archival footage, and contemporary observational footage to create a film as irreducible, uncharacterizable, and entertaining as the band and its music.”
The real-life California band were active from 1989 until 1999, releasing a total of five albums, including 1992’s Slanted and Enchanted, 1994’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and 1997’s Brighten the Corners, which gave the group their highest-charting U.S. release when it hit No. 70 on the Billboard 200. Their final album was 1999’s Major Leagues.
In December, Kannberg revealed in an interview with the Kreative Kontrol podcast that the Pavements soundtrack will also feature the first new song from the band in more than 25 years. “There will be a new Pavement song on the soundtrack, that’s all I’m going to give you,” he explained. “I just heard a mix of it today, and it’s pretty good. It’s not a big deal, it’s just cool because it’s something different and it’s a song that we all kind of loved playing.”
Pavements will hit theaters nationwide on June 6. Watch the new trailer below.
It’s fair to say the three members of Imagine Dragons are over the moon about their new concert film Imagine Dragons: Live From the Hollywood Bowl (with the LA Film Orchestra), showing in theaters March 26 and 29. The fact that it comes in the wake of the band’s music actually being on the moon makes it even better.
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On March 5, Imagine Dragon’s “Children of the Sky” — which the Las Vegas-formed group co-wrote with Inon Zur and others in 2023 for the video game Starfield — was embedded in Athena, a ship the space startup Lonestar Data Holdings sent to Earth’s moon. And while music had previously arrived there on other voyages, it marked the first time a song was transmitted back to Earth — albeit a day later because the Athena craft landed on its side, and short of its target, so some adjustments had to be made.
Imagine Dragons’ guitarist Wayne Sermon is still stoked that “Children of the Sky” skied its way back to its home planet. “I was here, and I was following the mission live on YouTube,” Sermon tells Billboard via Zoom from Los Angeles, where he now resides. “I’m very much into space exploration, I’m into anything NASA’s doing. I’m very fascinated with that kind of stuff…It was one of the easiest yeses we had. Things looked a little dicey there for a minute…but (Athena) was able to still do a couple of things and one of them happened to be beaming our song.
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“We were happy just to be part of it. It’s a crazy thing. Put it up on the list of things that are just surreal, having your music beamed from the moon. It’s like alright, sure, that sounds reasonable, OK.”
Sermon says he hasn’t had a chance to flex any bragging rights over the achievement, however. “I haven’t used it once, man. Unbelievable,” he says. “It hasn’t come up in conversation, casually. Once it does I have an ace in the hole at a dinner party — ‘So, how about the moon…?’”
Sermon says the filmed Hollywood Bowl experience was also otherworldly. Filmed Oct. 27, 2024, at the last of four shows Imagine Dragons performed at the venue (and the final date of the North American leg of its Loom World Tour), the concert found the band — also including frontman Dan Reynolds and bassist Ben McKee — playing with a full orchestra conducted by Zur, whose video game scoring work the group has long admired.
“We saw these Hollywood Bowl shows coming down the pipeline while we were on tour,” Sermon recalls. “We just felt like something needed to happen there. We’d sold out four shows, which was kind of crazy to us, and it seemed to be special, so we thought, ‘Why don’t we do something with an orchestra, a one-night-only thing.’” The group recruited Zur to create orchestrations and then watched it grow from a handful of numbers to the entire 22-song concert.
“We’d keep getting emails from (Zur), ‘OK, send me another one,’ and the next day we’d have an arrangement and ‘Send me another one,’” Sermon says. “This kept happening until he’d arranged every single moment of the show. From start to finish it was a complete collaboration, which I think is pretty rare in a show like that.”
Among the concert moments that most stand out is “Radioactive,” for which Zur created a duel between violin and cello players in the orchestra. “Children of the Sky” was another highlight, according to Sermon. “That was a song conceived in the studio, and we weren’t present for when (Zur) came up with the orchestration for it,” Sermon says. “We wrote our part, he wrote his part and we got ’em together remotely. We never actually played that song together in the same room with an orchestra before. So for that song to come to life at (the Hollywood Bowl) felt like a full-circle moment. (Zur) wrote a really incredible intro to it where he could stretch out and show some of his chops. It was great to do that song and have it represented and documented forever.”
The film, however, was not part of the initial discussion and only decided upon “probably a couple of weeks before the show,” according to Sermon. “It was just going to be this thing that happened, that you just had to be there for. In this day and age, where everything is documented and overshared, it was maybe something that just lived for a night and was gone, and maybe there’s something beautiful about that. But the more we thought about it, so many people who would like to see it couldn’t. With Inon being involved and hearing his arrangements…we felt it would be a real shame for people not to hear it. Luckily our management scrambled to find some extra cameras and we threw it together and willed it into existence so people could see it.”
Live From the Hollywood Bowl was directed by Vincent Adam Paul and will be screened in CJ 4DPLEX, ScreenX, 4DX and Ultra 4DX as well as standard formats. Theater and ticket information is available via ImagineDragonsMovie.com.
Sermon plans on catching one of the big-screen showings himself but anticipates the film will eventually go to streaming as well. “The whole point of filming it was so people can see it,” he says. “Seeing it in theaters, especially in 4DX formats, is gonna be mind-blowing for people, but eventually it will be streamed.”
Imagine Dragons will resume the Loom World Tour on April 4 in China and then begin a European run on May 27 in Italy. The trek is set to wrap up July 25-26 in London, while he, Reynolds and McKee are “just starting to write our new album now. We are exploring a lot of different options, including parting things back a lot — just trying new things and seeing what sticks. We don’t really know what we’re doing for next things until we just do it.”
Mt. Joy have awaken from their winter hibernation with a new single, “Coyote,” an infectious homage to the energy and excitement one experiences on the cusp of breaking through.
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The track is the first from the Philadelphia indie rockers’ fourth studio album, Hope We Have Fun (out May 30 on Futures x Bloom Field). It arrives ahead of the April 19 kickoff to their 2025 North American tour.
Frontman Matt Quinn tells Billboard the first single was inspired by the sounds of coyotes in Los Angeles’ San Rafael Hills and the energy found in young groups of coyotes, commonly called a band. Quinn says the song is a celebration of the make-it-or-break-it energy the band experienced grinding it out on the road and the surprising paradigm shifts that followed their crossover success.
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Last year, the five-piece group hit a number of touring milestones, performing at both New York’s Madison Square Garden and Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheater and selling more than 180,000 tickets on their biggest tour yet.
Success has brought changes to the way the band tours, Quinn tells Billboard. “The shows have gotten quite a bit bigger and that changes the day pretty dramatically for us. We don’t have to set the whole thing up ourselves which gives us a lot more time to work on new things we want to try to incorporate into the live shows,” he explains.
“I will say, though, there is something awesome about the adventure of being in a van and pulling over at random roadside attractions and being late to a venue load-in because you took a detour and saw a random man’s petting zoo,” Quinn added. “Now we drive in the middle of the night so it’s just truck stops and Nintendo Switch.”
A complete list of tour stops from the band’s 2025 run can be found below. Listen to “Coyote” here.
HOPE WE HAVE FUN TOUR
04/19 – John Paul Jones Arena – Charlottesville, VA
04/21 – KEMBA Live! – Outdoors – Columbus, OH
04/25 – Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre – Charlotte, NC
04/26 – High Water Festival – North Charleston, SC
05/04 – BEACHLIFE FESTIVAL – Redondo Beach, CA
06/06 – Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre – Sterling Heights, MI
06/07 – Stage AE – Outdoors – Pittsburgh, PA
06/08 – The Governors Ball Music Festival – New York, NY
06/10 – Midway Lawn at Champlain Valley Expo – Essex Junction, VT
06/12 – MegaCorp Pavilion – Newport, KY
06/13 – Merriweather Post Pavilion – Columbia, MD
06/14 – Bonnaroo – Manchester, TN
06/17 – Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park – Indianapolis, IN
06/19 – Thompson’s Point – Portland, ME
06/20 – Green River Festival – Greenfield, MA
06/20-06/22 – Mountain Jam Music Festival – Highmount, NY
06/28 – BST Hyde Park – London, UK
07/04-07/05 – Zootown Festival – Missoula, MT
07/23-07/27 – FloydFest – Floyd, VA
07/27 – Newport Folk Festival – Newport, RI
08/09 – Scotiabank Saddledome – Calgary, AB
08/10 – Edmonton Folk Festival (Gallagher Park) – Edmonton, AB
08/12 – Twilight Concert Series at Library Square – Salt Lake City, UT
08/14 – Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Morrison, CO
08/15 – Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre – Denver, CO
08/17 – Ford Idaho Center Amphitheater – Nampa, ID
08/19 – Deer Lake Park – Burnaby, BC
08/20 – WAMU Theater – Seattle, WA
08/22 – Hayden Homes Amphitheater – Bend, OR
08/23 – The Greek Theatre – Berkeley, CA
08/24 – Santa Barbara Bowl – Santa Barbara, CA
08/26 – The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park – San Diego, CA
09/11 – Budweiser Stage – Toronto, ON
09/12-09/14 – Borderland Music Festival – East Aurora, NY
09/13 – United Center – Chicago, IL
09/16 – The Armory – Minneapolis, MN
09/17 – Kohl Center – Madison, WI
09/20 – TD Garden – Boston, MA
09/23 – Koka Booth Amphitheatre – Cary, NC
09/24 – ExploreAsheville.com Arena – Asheville, NC
09/26 – TD Pavilion at The Mann – Philadelphia, PA
09/27 – TD Pavilion at The Mann – Philadelphia, PA