Tour Kick-Offs: Bob Dylan, Lil Wayne, Furthur and More
Check back every week for a rundown of summer festivals and tours kicking off in the coming days.
BOB DYLAN
July 14th-August 20th
Tickets: $30-$200
Dylan‘s Never Ending Tour, launched back in 1988, is rolling on for yet another summer. In recent years the set list has fallen into a reliable pattern: Dylan mostly stands behind a keyboard and leads his band through vintage classics and recent album cuts, typically closing the main set with a spell-binding “Ballad of a Thin Man” before encores of “Like A Rolling Stone” and “All Along The Watchtower.” Opening act Leon Russell will lend a hand, starting on July 24th.
FURTHUR
July 15th-October 8th
Tickets: $45-$70
“It’s like any living thing,” says Phil Lesh of his post-Dead project with Bob Weir. “It just grows.” One highlight of this summer’s shows will be an overhauled version of “The Mountain Song,” a lost space-folk collaboration between Jerry Garcia and David Crosby. Says Lesh, “I called Crosby and he said, ‘My God, I almost remember that!’ ”
LIL WAYNE
July 13th-September 11th
Tickets: $25-$99
Weezy hand-picked Rick Ross and R&B smoothie Lloyd as openers for the latest leg of his I Am Still Music Tour. “It’s not just a one-genre, one-vibe tour,” says tour producer Shawn Gee. With recording for Tha Carter IV nearly complete, Wayne is preparing for the shows in his own mega-chill way. “He doesn’t rehearse,” says manager Cortez Bryant. “He’ll just get up there and wing it – and he kills it, every single time.”
PITCHFORK MUSIC FESTIVAL
Chicago
July 15th-17th
Top Acts: Animal Collective, TV on the Radio, Fleet Foxes, Neko Case, Das Racist, Yuck, DJ Shadow
Indie-rock acts big and small assemble in Chicago’s Union Park for a wildly eclectic weekend of under-the-radar sounds.
ROCK FEST
Cadott, Wisconsin
July 14th-17th
Top Acts: Kid Rock, Avenged Sevenfold, Def Leppard, Heart, Rob Zombie, Hinder, Cinderella, Chevelle
The name is generic, but the riffs will hit hard when some of the biggest hard-rock acts in the world gather for three days of mayhem.
Related
•Bob Dylan at 70: Photos, Features, His Best Songs and More
• Lil Wayne: A History in Photos
• Photos: The Week’s Hottest Live Shots
Previously
• Tour Kick-Offs: Soundgarden, Animal Collective and More