Queensrÿche tour continues ‘American Soldier’ dates through fall 

As progressive metal group Queensrÿche completes the final stage of its spring American Soldier Tour this week, plans are already in the works for at least two more tours of duty on the U.S. concert circuit later this year.

A second round of North American concerts picks up July 24 at Northern Lights in Clifton Park, NY, and ends August 1 at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD, followed by a fall trek from October 30 at Piere’s Entertainment Center in Ft. Wayne, IN, through November 14 at Revolution in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Tickets for select nights of the upcoming treks are already on sale. Information on ticket pricing, as well as future onsale dates and times, will be announced on the official Queensrÿche Web site.

The veteran rock troupe is continuing to support its most recent studio album, “American Soldier,” released March 31. The concept album is the band’s tenth full-length studio album and debuted at No. 25 on the Billboard 200.

The main idea for “American Soldier” stemmed from a recorded conversation between Queensrÿche’s frontman and principle songwriter Geoff Tate and his father, a veteran who served with a couple branches of the armed forces during the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

“He had never talked about his experiences in war, and all my life I’ve been asking questions and waiting for the stories that I never heard,” Tate explained in a statement on the band’s official MySpace profile. “These past couple of years he started talking, and I taped one of the conversations. That was the beginning.”

The band has performed more than 30 concerts since the American Soldier Tour launched on April 16-17 at Snoqualmie Casino in Snoqualmie, WA. They’ll take the stage again tonight, June 1, for a concert at the Rialto Theatre in Tucson, AZ, and continue up the West Coast through the June 6 closing show at McDonald Theatre in Eugene, OR.

Following Queensrÿche’s fall trek, the band will go aboard the MSC Poesia for the multiple-day ShipRocked cruise. The venture sails to Jamaica and Grand Cayman from Ft. Lauderdale, FL, on November 15 and returns to port on November 20.

Queensrÿche itinerary:
(Dates are subject to change.)