Rumblings about the reemergence of Alabama Shakes have increased over the past few weeks and finally reached seismic proportions Friday with the announcement of a North American tour that’ll hit Milwaukee on Sept. 4.
It’s been eight years since the trio of Brittany Howard, Heath Fogg and Zac Cockrell last played a proper concert and nearly a decade since the release of their smash sophomore album, Sound & Color. The first reveal in their return is the touring plans, which get started July 16 in Chicago and do a loop around the U.S. before circling back to Milwaukee in the dying days of summer for a show 88Nine is pumped to present.
That schedule will get the band plenty of time to share phase two: new music.
“Last year, Heath, Zac and I started chatting about how much fun it would be to make music together and tour again as Alabama Shakes,” Howard said in a release. “This band and these songs have been such a source of joy for all of us. It is crazy that it has been 10 years since we released Sound and Color, and eight years since we played a show.
“But we didn’t want this to entirely be a look back. We wanted it to be as much about the future as the past. So we have a bunch of new music that will be released soon. We just can’t wait to experience that ‘feeling’ when we start playing those first few notes of ‘Don’t Wanna Fight’ or ‘Gimme All Your Love.’”
The former was part of Alabama Shakes’ Grammy haul in 2016: Best Rock Performance and Best Song for “Don’t Wanna Fight,” and Best Alternative Music Album for Sound & Color, which was also nominated for Album of the Year. They also snagged a statuette in 2018 for “Killer Diller Blues,” which won Best American Roots Performance.
Going back even further — and this is the part where we brag a bunch — our own Tarik Moody was on Alabama Shakes before they were even signed to a label and played the crap out of them on our airwaves. On March 10, 2012, they came to the Pabst Theater and played their first sold-out show to an appreciative Milwaukee audience. Were we at least partly responsible? Who's to say?
The bigger question is: Can we do it again Sept. 4? We’ll find out when tickets go on sale next week, starting Monday with the first of a couple presales. The general public gets their turn starting at 10 a.m. Friday, Feb. 14, online and at the Pabst/Riverside box offices.
