Lady Antebellum Reveal Details of Nashville Homecoming

Lady Antebellum’s 65-city Wheels Up 2015 Tour, in support of the group’s airborne LP 747, takes off for Europe at the end of this month and will touch back down in the U.S. in May, with Hunter Hayes and Sam Hunt along as special guests. Although the trio has performed onstage at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena at various awards shows, they’ve never headlined — or, for that matter, even opened — a show at the Music City hockey rink. That will change on September 11th, however, as Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood play their first-ever full-scale gig at their hometown venue.

“We’ve talked about doing this for the longest time,” says Kelley, who will celebrate his birthday the day of the gig, during a press event Monday morning. “It’s always a scary thing. Nashville is very industry-heavy, obviously, and we know there’ll be a lot of peers here. So you want to make sure going into it that you’re ready and that you feel like you’re at a point in your career where you can fill it up. We felt like we had just such an amazing year with ‘Bartender’ and to have these two amazing openers, Sam Hunt and Hunter Hayes, this is the year to come out swinging.”

“It’s truly a bucket-list show,” Haywood says. “It’s such a big stage, massive. We’ve never even opened up for anybody at Bridgestone. We love this town and wanted to make it a priority.”

Scott echoes her bandmates’ sentiments and believes a home-turf show carries a certain amount of weight. “This is where we live,” she says. “It’s just nice to be home, especially because I was born and raised here. This is all I’ve ever known.”