Sturgill Simpson will remain on the road for the rest of year, thanks to a newly-added string of tour dates that extend the Metamodern Sounds in Country Music singer’s concert calendar through Thanksgiving.
The Living The Dream Tour is a well-deserved victory lap for Simpson, who, in the past year alone, has played everywhere from Bonnaroo to Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July picnic, making stops at virtually every late-night TV program on both sides of the Atlantic along the way. He also earned a deal with Atlantic Records, thanks to the sales of the independently-released Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, which has moved nearly 120,000 copies during its first fourteen months. Although details about Metamodern‘s follow-up are scarce, Simpson has already returned to the recording studio with producer Dave Cobb, who helmed his first two solo albums.
Additions to the upcoming tour, which more than double his original schedule, include a two-night homecoming at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium and back-to-back shows at the Lincoln Theatre in D.C., along with headlining shows in Vancouver, Denver, Seattle, Asheville, North Carolina, Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles. Simpson, who announced the tour’s first round of dates last month, will also make two appearances at the Austin City Limits Festival in October.
Boosted by the psychedelic stomp of drummer Miles Miller, bassist Kevin Black and Americana Awards-nominated guitarist Laur Joamets, Simpson’s live shows have expanded his audience far beyond the world of country music, roping in everyone from Deadheads to bluegrass fans. He’s been compared to the pioneers of outlaw country — particularly Waylon Jennings, whose son, Shooter Jennings, played a big role in connecting Simpson with Dave Cobb — and hailed as the unlikely savior of a genre that’s grown too far past its roots. To his credit, Simpson has shrugged off that title.
“I don’t need that pressure,” he told Rolling Stone Country last year. “And what does that even really mean? It’s not like Clear Channel is going to wake up tomorrow and be like, ‘Oh, let’s play this guy for a while and see what happens.’ No. There are no delusions of the tide shifting. I just try to do what I believe in and, more importantly, wake up in 20 or 30 years and still feel proud. These records may be the only semblance of who I actually was someday. To anybody that gives a shit.”
Sturgill Simpson’s Living the Dream Tour dates:
September 12 — Maryville, Tennessee, The Shed
