Jam band Little Feat returns to F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre with Hot Tuna on April 15
From a press release:
It turns out that Feat fans were as excited about the return of Little Feat as the band members.
After the warm reception they gave the By Request Tour in November, the platinum-selling classic rock band added more shows in the South in January, leading to Feat Camp in Jamaica. Then they announced the Waiting for Columbus Tour, which will start March 4 in Columbus, Ohio. And that was clearly not enough.
So put on your dancing shoes because Feat is adding more shows.
A few days after performing at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, Little Feat will return to the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre on Friday, April 15 with special guests Hot Tuna, who will play an acoustic set.
Doors at the Kirby Center (71 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre) open at 6:30 p.m., and the music starts at 8 p.m.
Tickets, which are $49.50, $59.50, $79.50, $99.50, $189.50 (VIP, available online only), and $274.50 (VUP, available online only), plus applicable fees, go on sale this Friday, Dec. 10 at 10 a.m. and will be available at the Sundance Vacations Box Office at the F.M. Kirby Center, online at kirbycenter.org and ticketmaster.com, and by phone at 570-826-1100. A Kirby Member pre-sale begins Thursday, Dec. 9 at 10 a.m.
Little Feat previously brought their 50th Anniversary Tour to the Kirby Center in 2019, and they played their iconic 1978 live album “Waiting for Columbus” with moe. and Turkuaz at the Peach Music Festival in Scranton in 2018.
In 2022, it doesn’t stop with Waiting for Columbus Tour – there’s more. As part of coming back together, the band rerecorded the classic “Fat Man in a Bathtub” (which will premiere on Dec. 9 at Jambands.com), and it’s smoking.
Making a truly great live rock and roll album is an enormous challenge, so difficult that they are a rarity. “Waiting for Columbus” is a consensus member of that very exclusive club.
Jerry Garcia once said that making a studio album was like building a ship in a bottle; with skill and oceans of patience, you could make something beautiful. But playing live and recording it was like being on a ship in a raging storm. Feat’s trademark blend of California rock, funk, folk, jazz, country, rockabilly, and New Orleans swamp boogie rested on a base of improvisational skill and jazz-based chops that made their live shows special, and on “Columbus” those abilities are on triumphant display.
In August of 1977, the band brought along a recording team to four shows in London and then three in Washington, D.C., and they captured sonic gold. Backed by the Tower of Power horn section, with whom they’d recorded “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now” (1974), they romped through extended versions of a stellar song selection that included “Fat Man in the Bathtub,” “Spanish Moon,” “Dixie Chicken,” “Sailin’ Shoes,” and “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now,” as well as the iconic truck driver’s lament “Willin’,” the song that got Lowell George out of the Mothers of Invention and gave birth to Little Feat. Generations of listeners have worn out the original vinyl, and the digital world will carry that heritage forward.
Hearing it again is something every Feat fan looks forward to, so it’s time for them to lace up their dancing shoes for Bill Payne (keyboards, vocals), Kenny Gradney (bass), Sam Clayton (percussion and vocals), Fred Tackett (guitars and vocals), Scott Sharrard (guitars and vocals), and Tony Leone (drums), the 2021-2022 lineup.
Hot Tuna – Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady – perform with a well-honed and solid power – always in the groove from their years of experience and mutual inspiration. Started as a side project during Jefferson Airplane days, the constant, the very definition of Hot Tuna, has always been Kaukonen and Casady. The two boyhood pals have never wavered in one of the most enduring friendships in rock history.
From their days playing together as teenagers in the Washington, D.C., area through years of inventive psychedelic rock in San Francisco (1996 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees) to their current acoustic and electric blues sound, no one has more consistently led American music for the last 50 years than Kaukonen and Casady, the founders and continuing core members of Hot Tuna. At the 2016 Grammys, they were both were honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards.
See NEPA Scene’s photos of Little Feat performing at the 2018 Peach Music Festival at The Pavilion at Montage Mountain here.
