After completing a summer co-headlining run with Collective Soul and Live, the jam band Blues Traveler is gearing up for another U.S. tour. The 23-date jaunt picks up October 16 at the HighLine Ballroom in New York, NY, and continues through a November 24 concert at the Showbox in Seattle, WA.
The coast-to-coast trek includes an October 25 performance at Rams Head On Stage in Annapolis, MD, a Halloween gig at Bogarts in Cincinnati, OH, and a November 18 gig at the Fillmore in San Francisco, CA.
According to the band’s Web site, Blues Traveler has been performing more than 100 shows per year for the past eight years. This year, they hit the road in mid-April for a series of spring dates, including an August 3 appearance at Lollapalooza in Chicago, IL.
The Southern-influenced jam band is continuing its support for the August 28 release, “North Hollywood Shootout,” which includes a spoken word segment with Bruce Willis. Known for its highly improvisational concerts, the musicians tried to recreate the band’s jam-style live performances on the album.
“The main thing that we wanted to emphasize on this record was melody, and I think that that aspect of it turned out really well,” said frontman John Popper in a statement. “The guys took a real risk in trusting me to run with that.”
“Instead of doing the usual pre-production process, where we really worked out the songs before taking them into the studio, we decided to go straight into the studio and do the songwriting there,” guitarist Chan Kinchla explained the process. “We’d find a cool little pocket and jam on it, or there’d be a drumbeat or a guitar part that was really happening, and we’d take the best part of that and use it as the foundation of the song.”
The band, which got its start in the late ’80s, debuted with an eponymous album in 1990. However, Blues Traveler’s mainstream breakthrough came from the fourth studio album, 1994’s “four.” The six-time Multi-Platinum album’s featured the band’s signature single “Run-Around,” which peaked on Billboard‘s Adult Top 4 list at No. 2 in 1995, and placed again in 1996 with a peak position of No. 4.
Blues Traveler itinerary:
(Dates subject to change.)
| October 16 | New York, NY | HighLine Ballroom |
| October 19 | Asbury Park, NJ | Stone Pony |
| October 21 | Foxboro, MA | Showcase Live |
| October 22 | New Haven, CT | Toad’s Place |
| October 23 | Poughkeepsie, NY | The Chance |
| October 25 | Annapolis, MD | Rams Head On Stage |
| October 26 | West Chester, PA | The Note |
| October 27 | Falls Church, VA | State Theatre |
| October 29 | Millvale, PA | Mr. Smalls Theatre |
| October 31 | Cincinnati, OH | Bogarts |
| November 2 | Minneapolis, MN | Cabooze |
| November 5 | Dallas, TX | House of Blues |
| November 6 | Houston, TX | House of Blues |
| November 8 | Austin, TX | Stubb’s Bar-B-Q Waller Creek |
| November 10 | Tucson, AZ | Rialto Theatre |
| November 11 | San Diego, CA | House of Blues |
| November 13 | Anaheim, CA | House of Blues |
| November 14 | Las Vegas, NV | The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel |
| November 16 | West Hollywood, CA | House of Blues Sunset Strip |
| November 18 | San Francisco, CA | Fillmore |
| November 19 | Monterey, CA | The Golden State Theatre |
| November 23 | Portland, OR | McMenamins Crystal Ballroom |
| November 24 | Seattle, WA | Showbox at the Market |
