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Rock Tenors - The Anthems Tour

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GET READY TO ROCK NELSON BECAUSE ROCK TENORS IS THE HOTTEST TICKET AVAILABLE WITH TOUR DATES SELLING OUT ACROSS THE SOUTH ISLAND!

Putting their own innovative twist on some of the world’s most loved ROCK ANTHEMS, the ROCK TENORS pay homage to the biggest acts in music including Bon Jovi, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Kiss, Toto, David Bowie, ACDC, Supertramp, Aerosmith, Queen and many more.

ROCK TENORS showcases five of New Zealand’s leading rock tenor vocalists who together, reinvent the standard male vocal group with arrangements and harmonic complexity that creates a seriously immersive and nostalgic rock experience.

Covering iconic rock hits from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and now – the ROCK TENORS is a 2-hour full scale THEATRICAL PRODUCTION produced and directed by Doug Kamo and supported by a 5-piece powerhouse band, big sound, world class staging and state of the art lighting and multimedia.

“THE QUESTION ‘ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?’ HAS NEVER BEEN SO INVITING!”

Other shows you might like:

Wilson Dixon - Love Don't Live Here Anymore, You Do

Heath Franklin's Chopper - Not Here To F*ck Spiders

Our box office is open: monday-friday, 12-4pm; plus one hour before showtime for ticket pickups & purchases for the show about to start..

78 Rutherford Street, Nelson 7010

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Rock Tenors - The Anthems Tour

Fri Jul 14 2023 at 07:30 pm

Mayfair Theatre Dunedin | Dunedin, OT

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Host or Publisher Doug Kamo Creative Management

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Rock Tenors: The Anthems Tour

Grand Casino are incredibly privileged and thankful to be back on board as proud sponsors of Rock Tenors – The Anthems Tour presented by Doug Kamo Creative Management. As sponsors, we want to bring more affordable entertainment and fun back into our communities whilst supporting, fostering, and encouraging our local talent 

We recently celebrated the opening of the season of Rock Tenors at the stunning Cooke Howlison Toyota Dunedin showroom with over 150 guests in attendance, including sponsors, media partners, cast and crew of the performance!

The Anthems Tour promises to be even bigger and better than 2022! With a stellar cast, covering iconic hits, an always impressive production the Rock Tenors delivers the full experience living up to the tags of nostalgic ,  powerful and unforgettable.

We wish Doug, cast and crew all the best for Rock Tenors – The Anthems Tour, not only locally but with the touring of the show throughout the South Island. A bold move that showcases our local talent.

Many thanks once more to the team at Cooke Howlison Toyota, the Grand Casino F&B events team, esteemed guests, sponsors and all support crew that have come together at the gala night opening. 

Enjoy the show and congratulations to all involved in making this happen!

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Theatres in Moscow

Cultural life of Moscow city is various and rich! Operas, ballets, symphonic concerts... Russian composers have created some of the most beautiful classical music. Russian classical music is very popular in Moscow. It is performed in many beautiful historical venues. Do not forget to include a visit to a concert hall in your itinerary when you are planning your stay in Moscow! And do it in advance.

There are almost no restrictions on dress code in Russian theatres. Visitors may wear jeans and sports shoes, they may have a backpack with them. Only shorts are not allowed.

A typical feature of Russian theatre – visitors are bringing a lot of flowers which they present to their favorite performers after the show.

Here are some practical advices where to go and how to buy tickets.

The Bolshoi Theatre

The Bolshoi Theatre is the oldest, the most famous and popular opera and ballet theatre in Russia. The word “Bolshoi” means “big” in Russian. You can buy a ticket online in advance, 2-3 months before the date of performance on the official website . Prices for famous ballets are high: 6-8 thousand rubles for a seat in stalls. Tickets to operas are cheaper: you can get a good seat for 4-5 thousand rubles. Tickets are cheaper for daytime performances and performances on the New Stage. The New Stage is situated in the light-green building to the left of the Bolshoi's main building. The quality of operas and ballets shown on the New Stage is excellent too. However, you should pay attention that many seats of the Bolshoi’s Old and New Stages have limited visibility . If you want to see the Bolshoi’s Old Stage but all tickets are sold out, you can order a tour of the theatre. You can book such a tour on the official website.

If you want, following Russian tradition, to give flowers to the performers at the end of the show, in the Bolshoi flowers should be presented via special staff who collects these flowers in advance.

In August the Bolshoi is closed.

The Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre

This theatre is noteworthy. On one hand, it offers brilliant classical opera and ballet performances. On the other hand, it is an experimental venue for modern artists. You can check the program and buy tickets online here http://stanmus.com/ . If you are opera lover, get a ticket to see superstar Hibla Gerzmava . The theatre has a very beautiful historic building and a stage with a good view from every seat. Tickets are twice cheaper than in the Bolshoi.

The Novaya Opera

“Novaya” means “New” in Russian. This opera house was founded in 1991 by a famous conductor Eugene Kolobov. Its repertoire has several directions: Russian and Western classics, original shows and divertissements, and operas of the 20th and 21st centuries. It is very popular with Muscovites for excellent quality of performances, a comfortable hall, a beautiful Art Nouveau building and a historic park Hermitage, which is situated right next to it. You can buy tickets online here http://www.novayaopera.ru/en .

Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Center

The Opera Center has become one of the best theatrical venues in Moscow. It was founded in 2002 by great diva Galina Vishnevskaya. Nowadays its artistic director is Olga Rostropovich, daughter of Galina Vishnevskaya and her husband Mstislav Rostropovich, great cellist and conductor. Not only best young opera singers perform here, but also world music stars do; chamber and symphonic concerts, theatrical productions and musical festivals take place here. You can see what is on the program here http://opera-centre.ru/theatre . Unfortunately “booking tickets online” is available in Russian only. If you need help, you can contact us at and we can book a ticket for you. 

Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and The Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory

These are two major concert halls for symphonic music in Moscow. Both feature excellent acoustics, impressive interior, various repertoire and best performers. You can check the program here http://meloman.ru/calendar/ . You need just to switch to English. Booking tickets online is available only for owners of Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian phone numbers. If you need help, you can contact us and we can book a ticket for you. 

Moscow International Performing Arts Center (MIPAC)

This modern and elegant concert hall houses performances of national and foreign symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, solo instrumentalists, opera singers, ballet dancers, theatre companies, jazz bands, variety and traditional ensembles. Actually, it has three concert halls placed on three different levels and having separate entrances. The President of MIPAC is People’s Artist of the USSR Vladimir Spivakov, conductor of “Virtuosy Moskvy” orchestra. You can see pictures of the concert halls here http://www.mmdm.ru/en/content/halls . The program is impressive in its variety but is not translated into English. You can contact us at and we can find a performance for you.

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‘Is She Sure?’ How the Breeders Joined Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts Tour.

The ’90s alt-rock icons hit the Madison Square Garden stage for the first time Friday night, after the 21-year-old pop star invited them to join her on the road.

By Jenn Pelly

Olivia Rodrigo remembers her life in two parts: before she heard the Breeders’ “Cannonball,” and after, she told the crowd at Madison Square Garden on Friday night, when her Guts World Tour arrived in New York.

And that is how the ’90s alt-rock idols came to play the New York arena for the first time last week, 31 years after that song from their platinum 1993 album, “Last Splash,” charted on Billboard’s Hot 100.

Rodrigo’s camp initially approached the Breeders in September about opening some dates on the tour supporting her second album, “Guts .” “My first reaction was, Wow, that seems kind of odd,” the band’s bassist, Josephine Wiggs, said in an interview. “But after I’d thought about it for a while, I thought, ‘That’s actually really genius.’”

Kim Deal, the singer-guitarist who leads the band with her twin sister, Kelley, said she was surprised when they got the invite. “I’d heard ‘Drivers License,’ and I liked that a lot,” she said, referring to Rodrigo’s breakout 2021 smash.

Kelley wondered if it might be a mistake. “I thought, ‘Is she sure? Do they really mean us?’”

But Rodrigo made her enthusiasm clear when the shows were confirmed, reaching out personally to share her excitement. “She texted each one of us individually,” Kelley recalled.

“And said, ‘Really happy to hear that you’re going to do this,’” Wiggs added. “Very classy.”

Aside from Kim, who played Madison Square Garden in 1992 when her earlier band, Pixies, opened for U2, no one in the group had ever performed at the venue before. Kim hadn’t been back since, and said she had no memory of that previous gig: “I usually remember the bad shows, so it’s a good thing that I really don’t remember that one.”

With the first date in the books, the Breeders spent part of Saturday afternoon glimpsing Rodrigo’s soundcheck — she was belting “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl” to an empty arena — and then briefly chatting with her. “So easy to talk to!” Kim reported as the Breeders headed up to the stage to adjust their own amps and pedals. The lights were up; two men vacuumed the previous night’s pink and purple star-shaped confetti.

“How about we do a piece of ‘Cannonball,’ like when everything comes in?” Kim asked the band, which also includes the drummer Jim Macpherson. They had already tested the distorted ahh-ooohh-ahh vocalizations that open the song. Kim blew a whistle to emulate the record’s microphone feedback.

Rodrigo was born a decade after the release of “Cannonball,” but the 21-year-old heard it as a teenager and remembers “instantly falling in love with the Breeders,” she wrote in an email. “I thought Kim was the coolest girl in the world,” Rodrigo said. “I’m very inspired by them and everything they stand for. They are absolutely iconic, and playing these shows with them has been a surreal honor.” (The Breeders have joined the tour for four shows at the Garden that wrap on Tuesday, and four more at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles later this summer.)

Mischief, wryness, confidence and camaraderie feel encoded into the poised riffs and bass line of “Cannonball,” and it’s easy to imagine girls gently headbanging along to it for eternity. Rodrigo went louder and crunchier on “Guts,” long inspired by artists who are “not trying to recreate a version of rock music that guys make,” as she told The New York Times last year.

Soundcheck proceeded like a supercut. “Should we do half of ‘Do You Love Me Now’?” Kim asked before crashing the song open and letting its twin harmonies ring out. “A little piece of ‘Drivin’ on 9’?” signaling the aching country tune. “Should we throw in ‘Gigantic’?” Kim asked before unleashing the titanic anthem she co-wrote and sang as a member of Pixies. (She dedicated its “big, big love” to Rodrigo during the show.)

Earlier, the band sat in a green room processing its Guts experience so far. Kelley had been impressed by the emotional arc of Rodrigo’s songs the previous night. “I was texting somebody, ‘I’m so empowered right now!’” She later reached out to praise Rodrigo’s voice as “really special,” observing, “Her tone and control are spectacular!”

“She performs with a really good sense of humor,” Kim added.

Wiggs said she could hear some Breeders commonalties in a Rodrigo chord progression, while Macpherson detected a bit of the band in “Jealousy, Jealousy,” from her first album, “Sour.” “The bass riff was almost like a ‘Hag,’ ‘Hellbound’ -ish kind of thing,” he said.

The Breeders expressed shock at how young Rodrigo’s fans were, and the collective decibel of their screams on Friday night. “You’re going to be surprised by how loud it was,” Kelley said. Weren’t their own amps loud, too? “Not louder than 30,000 tweens,” she said.

Kim roasted her bandmates for withholding stage banter the night before. “Looking out at the sea of 7- and 8-year-olds, I had no idea what to say,” Wiggs said, deadpan. “I could just about manage to say something to people who are obviously teenagers. I was like, OK, maybe I’ll try to make eye contact with the dads.”

The Deal sisters are no strangers to parental accompaniment at gigs. “My dad used to have Ray Charles in his headphones, watching us play, when he drove us around in the r.v. with Nirvana,” Kim said, referring to the band’s 1992 tour with what was then the biggest band on Earth. “He’d have his cassette Walkman,” Kelley added. “He was a big supporter, but he’d heard us a million times.”

In Kurt Cobain’s liner notes to Nirvana’s 1992 compilation “Incesticide,” he detailed the recent life experiences that had meant the most to him since “becoming an untouchable boy genius,” including “playing with the Breeders” on the list. “Nirvana and Foo Fighters would really curate their opening bands, which is I think what Olivia is doing in a way, curating new music that she wants fans to get to know,” Kelley said.

Most of the young people watching from the front rows on Saturday were not familiar with the Breeders — who are all in their 50s and 60s — though there were exceptions. “My parents know who they are!” exclaimed an 18-year-old fan named Mack. “My dad said they had some jams back when he was younger. He didn’t know if I would like them, but I trust Olivia.”

Another fan, Elle, 16, was with her father, who saw the Breeders at Lollapalooza alongside Smashing Pumpkins and the Beastie Boys. “For me, this was really cool,” he said. “I don’t know the tour’s other openers as well, but I’ve loved the Breeders since ’94 when I saw them last.”

Rodrigo’s fans were decked out in sparkling skirts, purple bows and platform boots in honor of their heroine, who took the stage in a series of short, glittering skirts. The Breeders are known for more understated sartorial choices. Had they given any thought about to what to wear?

“I sent out a ‘help’ text to a friend of mine,” Kelley admitted. “I said, I’m trying to upgrade my look from my T-shirt and jeans that I typically wear, but staying in my comfort zone. He said, ‘I find glitter or sequins to always be the answer.’ I just waited for him to laugh or something. That was no help to me at all. So I went with a T-shirt and jeans.”

“Like she’s been dressing since seventh grade,” Kim said.

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Rock Tenors - The Anthems Tour

Mayfair Theatre , 100 King Edward St, Kensington, Dunedin

Ticket Information

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• Fri 14 Jul 2023, 7:30pm–9:15pm
• Sat 15 Jul 2023, 7:30pm–9:15pm
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• Tue 18 Jul 2023, 7:30pm–9:15pm
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• Sat 22 Jul 2023, 5:00pm–6:45pm
• Sat 22 Jul 2023, 8:30pm–10:15pm

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Final Shows Added By Popular Demand!

Bon Jovi | ACDC | Led Zeppelin | Guns N Roses | Kiss | Aerosmith | Toto | David Bowie | Meatloaf | Red Hot Chilli Peppers | U2 | Poison | Supertramp | Queen and many more!

After last years sensational sell-out debut - Rock Tenors are hitting the road on a 10-venue tour with a brand-new production celebrating the very best rock anthems from the very best rock bands of all time.

Rock Tenors - The Anthems Tour, brings together five of New Zealand’s leading rock tenor vocalists, to reinvent the standard male vocal group with arrangements and harmonic complexity that creates a seriously immersive and nostalgic rock experience.

Putting their own innovative twist on some of the worlds most loved rock anthems, the Rock Tenors pay homage to the biggest acts in music including Bon Jovi, Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Toto, David Bowie, Meatloaf, Poison, Supertramp, Aerosmith, Queen and many more.

Covering iconic rock hits from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and now – the Rock Tenors is a 2-hour full scale theatrical production produced and directed by Doug Kamo with Musical Direction by Michael Grant and Che Long.

Nostalgic, powerful and unforgettable - don't miss the Rock Tenors - The Anthems Tour, an incredible theatrical rock event supported by a live 5-piece powerhouse band, big sound, world-class staging and state of the art lighting and multimedia.

Don't miss the theatrical rock event of 2023.

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80's Super Band 'Love Shack'

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Waitara Town and Country Club , Waitara, North Taranaki

Sat 11 May 8:00pm

A Rolling Stone , Christchurch

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Music Reviews

Beyoncé's 'cowboy carter' is a portrait of the artist getting joyously weird.

Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter has ignited discourse about the place of Black musicians in country music. But it's also evidence of its creator's desire to break genre walls by following her most eccentric impulses. Mason Poole/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter has ignited discourse about the place of Black musicians in country music. But it's also evidence of its creator's desire to break genre walls by following her most eccentric impulses.

This essay first appeared in the NPR Music newsletter. Sign up for early access to articles like this one, Tiny Desk exclusives, listening recommendations and more.

After two months of anticipation, Cowboy Carter has been out in the world for nearly a fortnight, and the discourse is thick as sawdust on a honky-tonk floor. Beyoncé's spangled opus, as lengthy and florid as a Sergio Leone classic — it really could have been called The Good, the Bey and the Ugly -- has generated more think pieces than any pop phenomenon since her friendly rival Taylor's Eras tour.

I've kept track of the coverage of Cowboy Carter and it's, well, something. Actually it's everything, ranging from paeans to (not too many) pans . Not weighing in hasn't been an option for most music writers, who have spilled tons of ink documenting the album's backstory, tracing its references, and examining its work of legacy building. What could I add to the discourse? Well, this: Whether it's considered a champion's walk, an overlong stumble, a powerful political gesture or a highly personal cri de couer — one thing Cowboy Carter is, undeniably even if no one has said it, is weird. And that's a wonderful thing.

Music Features

10 takeaways from beyoncé's new album, 'cowboy carter'.

Album Review

On 'cowboy carter,' beyoncé's country is as broad as the public she serves.

Not that Beyoncé herself would ever admit to her own eccentricity. She's declared herself a diligent student of the genre she sought to revise, and many of the touchstones on this massive grab bag of ballads and bangers check the boxes of cultural intervention. She features Dolly and Willie; shows us her boots, brand-name jeans and whiskey bottle; includes a murder ballad and her perspective on that ultimate country emblem, the American flag. (She sees it as red: blood, Alabama clay, indigenous people.)

Her inclusion of the undersung Black Grand Ole Opry pioneer Linda Martell as a collaborator nods to efforts to rectify historical omissions that have been going on in and around Nashville for years — shoutout to the Black Opry crew, to artist and radio host Rissi Palmer and to Martell's granddaughter, who continues to crowd-fund a documentary that Beyoncé really should just finance.

New roots: Black musicians and advocates are forging coalitions outside the system

Best Music Of 2021

How black women reclaimed country and americana music in 2021.

But the way she assembles these hardly unique elements is startling. Sidestepping either a conventional foray into country's traditional sounds or a risk-averse pop approach that would just use those elements as window-dressing, she and her dozens of collaborators assemble a cosmic omnibus of reference points while drilling down on her long-standing obsessions. While it's correct to call this album an epic and a strong political statement, it's an idiosyncratic one, more akin to Jim Jarmusch's off-kilter visions of American heritage — especially Mystery Train -- than, say, Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon .

It may seem off to identify eccentricity in a project that includes radio-ready Miley Cyrus and Post Malone collabs, and which was quickly endorsed by none other than the Vice President. Yet the first thing I thought of when I sat down to listen to Cowboy Carter was an album from 1967 that's beloved by many rock cognoscenti for its very peculiarness. Van Dyke Parks 's Song Cycle was the first solo album by the noted composer, arranger and producer. It is a shambling, sunnily psychedelic portrait of California living from the perspective of a transplanted white East Coaster with Southern roots. (Parks was born in Mississippi but grew up in Princeton singing in a boys' choir.)

Rich with strings and gorgeous melodies and rife with punnily poetical lines like, "Nowadays a Yankee dread not take his time to wend to sea" in a song about Parks's own experience trying to make it within the L.A. music biz hustle, no less, Song Cycle features Parks's birdlike warble, and by birdlike, I don't mean Beyoncé's operatic forays on new songs like "DAUGHTER" or "FLAMENCO," but Tweety Bird or the Peanuts ' Woodstock. Parks made the unfinished psychedelic masterpiece Smile with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and later worked with 21st-century visionaries Joanna Newsom and Gaby Moreno, among others. But Song Cycle is his strange baby. Though it's a rich work that offers real insight into the melting late 1960s American West Coast dream, Song Cycle is not for everyone. Parks experimented joyfully with song structure, sound effects and lyricism, painting a floating world that requires time and sympathy to comprehend.

Cowboy Carter sounds absolutely nothing like Song Cycle , yet I thought about the latter as I sunk into the non-linear, fragmentary experience of listening to it. I appreciate how Beyoncé sticks to her guns throughout, just as Parks maintained his whimsicality and dreaminess. Stacked harmonies do here what strings do on Song Cycle , lending grandeur to the opening "American Requiem" and tenderness to the ballads "MY ROSE" and "FLAMENCO" (the latter pairs them artfully with Andalusian hand-claps); yet those vocals also set a kind of Broadway stage for the songs, rendering them winsomely surreal. The album's employment of banjo and pedal steel signify country, sure, but they're used in unusual ways, as Parks uses accordion and balalaika. The distortions are highly individualistic, nothing like what current country sounds like. (Exception: that Post Malone duet, "LEVII'S JEANS.") Same with the roots references. The interlude "OH LOUISIANA" speeds up a Chuck Berry vocal to turn that rock and roll founder into helium. On the tour de force Tina Turner tribute "YA YA," Beyoncé begins with a spoken exchange with her background singers that calls back to her campy turn in Austin Powers in Goldmember as well as to Southern rap's most glorious weirdo breakthrough, Outkast's "Hey Ya!" Sure, this is historical work, but it's hardly textbook.

These tracks stand alongside others in a sprawl of concepts, tempos and tones until Cowboy Carter turns into a full-on megamix, its final four tracks returning to the dance party of Renaissance , abruptly concluded with a literal showstopper, the Broadway-ready "AMEN." The album is immersive, but it's a jerky, bucking rodeo ride, not a narrative that lends itself to easy absorption. And through it all Beyoncé bends country and blues tropes — those two genres are inseparable, something Cowboy Carter acknowledges — to the themes she can never abandon: the perils of attempted monogamy, the joy and terror involved in mothering and her own determination to be great, an ambition that she views as a responsibility more than a privilege.

Concept albums can be relatively straightforward, like Willie Nelson's classic Red Headed Stranger , but often they do come out ornate and leaky as their makers dump all of their ideas within the frame. Beyoncé nods sonically to a few that came after Song Cycle . At certain points, Sly and the Family Stone's murky funk on There's a Riot Goin' On comes to mind. Michael Jackson never made a full-on concept album, but that tarnished legend requires mention because Beyoncé's massive ambition rivals his more than anyone's. (Maybe Madonna's; she did make a concept record, Erotica . Or that soundtrack-maker Prince's.)

More recent touchstones include the high-concept forays of Janelle Monaé, whose " Tightrope " seems as much a touchstone for "YA YA" as does Tina Turner's shimmy, and the efforts of two of her collaborators on Cowboy Carter . Raphael Saadiq, who co-produced several tracks, released a similarly massive and emotionally affecting concept album , Jimmy Lee , in 2019. And the Virginia-born multihyphenate Shaboozie, a visionary character whom Beyoncé has apparently recognized as a kindred soul, paid tribute to the landscapes and culture of his native state on his own 2022 disquisition on the same themes as Cowboy Carter . Its title? Cowboys Live Forever, Outlaws Never Die .

Beyoncé is getting played on country radio. Could her success help other Black women?

When I associate Cowboy Carter with these equally adventurous and strange concept albums and the outsiders who made them, I don't mean to reduce the impact of her work or her centrality as an era-defining artist. Instead, I'm trying to free this fun and unfettered music from the burden of predefined significance. Beyoncé has, by her own will as well as her fans's needs, become what Doreen St. Felix calls an "übermatriarch," not only a biological mother but the nurturing, burdened mother of all of her faithful — and of Black America, a role she inherited and claimed from the equally eccentric and more reluctantly ennobled Aretha Franklin. The seriousness of her responsibilities has earned her a lot: millions nearing billions of dollars, a place among heads of state and a fan base that strikes fear in the hearts of naysayers. But for an artist, such success ultimately confines. Only a few have been able to remain playful and light-footed as their public images have hardened into marble.

Two such artists, as it happens, are ones Beyoncé directly takes on in Cowboy Carter : The Beatles, whose members never stopped releasing humorous and even nonsense songs alongside their wedding-and-funeral ballads and politicized anthems; and Dolly Parton, the most agile pop star of all, who's crossed into nearly every category that's interested her with her own birdlike laugh and dimpled smile. Dolly herself has deep and strange predilections: her many songs about dead children, for example, or her way of turning sexuality cartoonish not only as comic relief, but as a weapon. It's her oddball side as well as her musical genius that's allowed her to slip through so many doors.

Beyoncé did not create Cowboy Carter to honor white artists like Parton, but she made a wise decision by invoking her as a partner and a patron saint. In the spoken interlude that precedes Beyoncé's rewrite of her classic "Jolene," Parton refers to Beyoncé's famous line about a white woman's allure for her Black husband, "Becky with the good hair," as "that hussy with the good hair." She drawls out the insult, though, as if she's in the middle of a Hee Haw skit: huzzzzy . It's a goofy, enjoyably destabilizing moment — an eccentric gesture that reminds us that as serious as music can be, it's most powerful when its subversions are also fun.

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Missy Elliott to Embark on First Headlining Tour Ever, With Busta Rhymes, Ciara and Timbaland as Support

By Chris Willman

Chris Willman

Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic

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Missy Elliott , whose career has provided the very definition of “leave ’em wanting more,” has long resisted touring, but that’s changing in 2024. Along with some high-profile support acts, the hip-hop icon will embark on a tour of arenas in 24 cities this year — shockingly, the first time she’s toured as a headliner in her entire career, which began with a bang in the 1990s.

Supporting her along the way will be a trio of figures that are also instantly recognizable to anyone who knows Elliott’s career: Busta Rhymes , Ciara and Timbaland .

Popular on Variety

The tour — dubbed “Out of This World: The Missy Elliott Experience Tour” — begins July 4 in Vancouver and wraps up Aug. 22 in Rosemont, Illinois. Key stops along the way include shows July 11 at L.A,’s Crypto Arena, Aug. 9 at Newark, NJ’s Prudential Center and Aug. 12 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. The outing will also take her to cities including Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Oakland, Seattle, Austin, Houston, Tampa, Baltimore, Montreal and Toronto.

“This is an incredible time in my life as I am experiencing so many milestone ‘firsts,'” Elliott said in a statement. “Being the FIRST female hip-hop artist to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and now going out on my FIRST headline tour,. Fans have been asking me to tour forever but I wanted to wait until I felt the time was right because I knew if I was ever going to do it, I had to do it big, and I had to do it with family!”

The tour is being produced by Live Nation in association with Scott-Young, CEO of Monami Entertainment.

In recent years, Elliott has performed at some isolated festival dates, where she has bowled crowds over, along with a gig last year at Southern California’s Yamavaa Casino, which Variety reviewed , openly wondering why this show was not on the road. (The show was also ranked by Variety as one of the best concerts of the year at the end of 2023.)

Says Scott-Young, “I mean, look, she’s always been ahead of her time and as much as we’ve heard, ‘Well, so why did you wait so long?,’ she was just like, ‘It wasn’t that I was waiting — it’s just the timing is now.’ And Missy is very absolute about knowing exactly when she feels it is time to do something. So yeah, when we did the Yamavaa Casino, we all had the same reaction you did. Like, oh my God, this is fantastic, and we should be taking this around the country, around the world.”

The full lineup was a key part of why Elliott was willing to do this now, says the manager-producer.

“For Missy it was very important that when she embarked on this journey, she did it with what she’s calling her family,” Scott-Young says. “Busta and Missy have been twins for so long; people have compared them in terms of their unique ability to really think outside of the box, in terms of their personas, in terms of their music. So people have always wanted to see them do something together. And for me, that’s kind of a personal milestone, because I’ve managed them both for many years, and now still to this day am intricately involved with both of their careers and their lives. So to see them together on that stage is going to be a personal moment for me. And of course, Ciara has worked with her and they’ve become friends, and she looks to Missy as a mentor. She has such a dynamic stage show herself and is a pop star in her own right. And of course, Timbaland, who I call her partner in rhyme; those two have a long history.

“So from beginning to end, I will say this, it will be a seamless experience,” Scott-Young says, while declining to say exactly what format individual or collective sets might take. “I think everyone is aware they all have songs that they’ve collaborated on together. So of course we want the show to feel like a family affair.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Missy Elliott (@missymisdemeanorelliott)

Scott-Young says she’s met with disbelief when she reminds industry supporters that there has never been a proper Elliott tour, despite her rise to fame in the ’90s, even as she participated in group road shows like Lilith Fair back in the day.

“Everybody that I tell this is her first headline, they go, ‘Oh, no, no, no.’ Then they’re like, ‘Oh crap, you’re right.’ Because her presence is so powerful and we felt her throughout music for the last three decades. But the idea that she has never done great stages across the country is a little mind-boggling when you think of that, because she’s always felt so omnipresent.”

Is that just-as-elusive-a-thing — a full new album, which would be her first since 2005, if it were to come to be — also possible? “I mean, I would always say with Missy, you can never say never,” Scott-Young says. “And you can also never predict. I think we all thought this moment would never come, that we would see her headlining a tour, and here we are. So I would never say no. That’s all I will say about Missy Elliott.”

Scott-Young already had a big year ahead with a tour that will bring together XSCAPE and SWV along with Mya, Total and 702. “2024 is the year of intention for me. Everything that I’ve set my mind to and become determined to see come to life is coming to fruition. To put up these two tours within weeks of each other is unprecedented week and they were both very, very important to me personally for different reasons.”

The XSCAPE/SWV/et al. concept “came about as a result of the show that I did on Bravo, ‘The Queens of R&B,’ where the goal was to take the ladies out on a tour,” before a contretemps got in the way of that. Then, “we were able to come back together and realize that, collectively, they were stronger, leaning into just the women empowerment and supporting each other. These ladies put their differences aside to give the fans what they want. … This show is gonna be a women’s anthem from start to finish. It’s just a symbol of the resilience of women overcoming adversity, coming up on the other side, triumphant and celebrating their talents and gifts and sharing it with the world.”

As for Elliott and company, “Don’t take the tour itself for granted, the manager is urging: “All I’ll say is this: we never know when this will happen again,” Scott-Young says. “So this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I know what we’re getting ready to deliver on that stage.”

The itinerary:

Thursday, July 4 — Vancouver, BC — Rogers Arena

Saturday, July 6 — Seattle, WA — Climate Pledge Arena

Tuesday, July 9 — Oakland, CA — Oakland Arena

Thursday, July 11 — Los Angeles, CA —  Crypto.com  Arena

Saturday, July 13 — Las Vegas, NV — T-Mobile Arena

Tuesday, July 16 — Denver, CO — Ball Arena

Thursday, July 18 — Austin, TX — Moody Center

Saturday, July 20 — Houston, TX — Toyota Center

Wednesday, July 24 — Tampa, FL — Amalie Arena

Thursday, July 25 — Sunrise, FL — Amerant Bank Arena

Saturday, July 27 — Atlanta, GA — State Farm Arena

Thursday, August 1 — Baltimore, MD — CFG Bank Arena

Friday, August 2 — Hampton, VA — Hampton Coliseum

Saturday, August 3 — Belmont Park, NY — UBS Arena

Monday, August 5 — Philadelphia, PA — Wells Fargo Center

Thursday, August 8 — Washington, DC — Capital One Arena

Friday, August 9 — Newark, NJ — Prudential Center

Saturday, August 10 — Boston, MA — TD Garden

Monday, August 12 — Brooklyn, NY — Barclays Center

Thursday, August 15 — Detroit, MI — Little Caesars Arena

Saturday, August 17 — Montreal, QC — Bell Centre

Monday, August 19 — Toronto, ON — Scotiabank Arena

Thursday, August 22 — Rosemont, IL — Allstate Arena

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One of the hottest rock bands around is going on tour: Here’s how to get tickets

• Updated: Apr. 10, 2024, 3:14 p.m. |
• Published: Apr. 08, 2024, 9:26 a.m.

Greta Van Fleet Provided by ArtsQuest

• Kelly Kazek | [email protected]

Rock band Greta Van Fleet is touring summer 2024 in support of its latest album, “Starcatcher.” The group, made up of the Kiszka brothers – Sam, and twins Josh and Jake – and Danny Wagner, came on the scene in 2017 with the EP “Black Smoke Rising” and have since released the full studio albums “Anthem of a Peaceful Army,” “The Battle at Garden’s Gate” and “Starcatcher.”

The rockers will be at the Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville, Ala., May 8, 2024.

How to find tickets

Fans in Alabama can find tickets to the Huntsville show at Vivid Seats , StubHub and SeatGeek , or Orion’s ticketing partner, AXS.com .

Greta Van Fleet’s second EP, “From the Fires,” won the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.

“Anthem of the Peaceful Army,” released on October 2018, topped the Billboard Rock Albums chart in the first week after its release. The album’s first single, “When the Curtain Falls,” was the band’s third No. 1 single on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart.

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2018 Primetime Emmy & James Beard Award Winner

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