Hootie & the Blowfish reunite to tour with Barenaked Ladies, stopping at Hersheypark Stadium on Aug. 30
From a press release:
Iconic pop rock band Hootie & the Blowfish appeared on NBC’s “Today” this morning to announce a highly anticipated return to full-time touring in 2019 as they set out on the Group Therapy Tour with direct support from special guests Barenaked Ladies, another band that exploded in popularity in the ’90s.
Formed by Mark Bryan, Dean Felber, Darius Rucker and Jim “Soni” Sonefeld during their time as students at the University of South Carolina, Hootie & the Blowfish will visit 44 cities on the tour produced by Live Nation, kicking off Thursday, May 30 in Virginia Beach and wrapping Friday, Sept. 13 with a Columbia, South Carolina homecoming.
The Group Therapy Tour stops at Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey on Friday, Aug. 30 at 7:30 p.m. It will also hit the BB&T Pavilion in Camden, New Jersey on Sunday, July 28 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets for the Hershey concert, which start at $30.10 (processing fees apply), go on sale this Friday, Dec. 7 at 10 a.m. and will be available at the Giant Center box office (550 Hersheypark Dr., Hershey), online at hersheyentertainment.com and ticketmaster.com, and by phone at 717-534-3911 or 800-745-3000.
Citi is the official pre-sale credit card for the tour. As such, Citi cardmembers will have access to purchase pre-sale tickets beginning today at 10 a.m. until Thursday, Dec. 6 at 10 p.m. through Citi’s Private Pass program.
Hootie & the Blowfish fan club members can also access an exclusive pre-sale starting today at 10 a.m. Barenaked Ladies fans who have purchased VIP packages in the past will receive an exclusive code to purchase tickets early on Wednesday, Dec. 5 starting at 10 a.m. before they go on sale to the general public.
“Once the four of us met and started playing shows, we toured for years before signing a record deal,” reflects Rucker who, in the 10+ year break since their last formal tour and nearly 15 years since their last studio album as a band, has charted nine No. 1 singles on country radio.
Felber notes, “Having those shows at fraternity houses, clubs, and dive bars under our belt prepared us for success to a degree, and it’s something we’re proud of – that we put in the work – but what matters to me the most is that we’re still a band all these years later. We’ve never stopped being a band.”
“We were content playing clubs and small theaters, so playing to three, four, and five-times that size was incredible, and we’re looking forward to that feeling again on this tour,” Sonefeld echoes.
Bryan adds, “There’s nothing like playing music live. For the first time in nearly 20 years, we’ll be coming back to Columbia, South Carolina where it all began,” before Rucker interjects, “and we’re ready to rock.”
In addition to hitting the road on the Group Therapy Tour in 2019, the band described as “beloved” by the New York Times and praised by Billboard for their “undeniable charm” will also release a forthcoming sixth studio album under new label home Universal Music Group Nashville as their debut “Cracked Rear View” celebrates its 25th anniversary.
With the rich, bluesy vocals of Darius Rucker and gleeful harmonies of guitarist Mark Bryan, bassist Dean Felber, and drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld, Hootie & the Blowfish have sold over 25 million records worldwide to date after their infectious melodies hit the airwaves in 1994 with hits such as “Hold My Hand,” “Let Her Cry,” and “Only Wanna Be With You.”
The quartet met at the University of South Carolina where endless gigs at frat houses and local bars built a major local buzz. Their blend of pop, folk, blues, soul, and rock made them hard to pigeonhole but easily accessible to anyone who loved good music.
Atlantic Records, impressed by their regional draw, signed them and released “Cracked Rear View” in 1994. The album had been out for six months before the band played on the “Late Show with David Letterman,” which sent sales skyrocketing, eventually landing at No. 1 on the Billboard chart the following spring. “Cracked Rear View” and the band went on to win two Grammy Awards, an MTV Video Music Award, a Billboard Music Award, and multiple People’s Choice Awards. The album went on to earn the band Billboard’s Band of the Year Award in 1996 and the RIAA’s Diamond Award for sales in excess of 10 million units. Certified as 21x platinum, “Cracked Rear View” remains the fifth most certified studio album in music business history.
Notching 17 Billboard-charting songs to date, the band remained a top draw nationwide and released five more albums for Atlantic: “Fairweather Johnson,” “Musical Chairs,” “Scattered, Smothered & Covered,” “Hootie & The Blowfish,” and “The Best of Hootie & The Blowfish,” as well as “Looking for Lucky” on their own Sneaky Long Records and the “Live in Charleston: The Homegrown Concert Event” CD and DVD. The band took a break from full-time touring in 2008, reuniting annually for a variety of philanthropic events while also pursuing solo projects. 2019 will mark the band’s first full-time touring year in over a decade as they embark on the Group Therapy Tour in support of forthcoming new music.
Over the course of their own remarkable career, Barenaked Ladies have sold over 15 million albums, written multiple Top 20 hits (including radio staples “One Week,” “Pinch Me,” “Brian Wilson, and “If I Had $1,000,000”), garnered two Grammy nominations, won eight JUNO Awards, had Ben & Jerry’s name an ice cream after them (“If I Had 1,000,000 Flavours”), wrote and recorded the theme song to the award-winning TV series “The Big Bang Theory,” participated in the first-ever “space-to-Earth musical collaboration” with astronaut Chris Hadfield, and garnered an international fan base whose members number in the millions.
In 2018, the band (vocalist/guitarist Ed Robertson, drummer Tyler Stewart, keyboardist Kevin Hearn, and bassist Jim Creeggan) celebrated their 30th anniversary with the release of a dynamic new album, “Fake Nudes,” a much-deserved induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame (with Rush vocalist Geddy Lee handling the honors), and a proclamation from Toronto Mayor John Tory declaring Oct. 1 “Barenaked Ladies Day.” The band is currently in pre-production for a new album due out in 2019.
