Maren Morris to Hit Road With ‘Tour Bus Baby’ for Summer Amphitheater Outing
Click here to read the full article.
Maren Morris is not one for a super-extended maternity leave. After previously announcing a handful of festival dates for the summer, Morris has now revealed plans for a full amphitheater tour that will take her across North America through the summer months and into the early fall, wrapping with a return to L.A.’s Greek Theater Oct. 17.
It’s striking while the iron is hot, career-wise, since Morris (pictured above at the CMA Awards in November) is just coming off having her second single from 2019’s “Girl” album, “The Bones,” set a mark as the first song from a solo woman to top the country airplay chart for consecutive weeks in eight years. The tune has also done well in pop formats, too, befitting someone who had a smash as a participant in “The Middle”: Morris’ latest went top 10 at the adult top 40 format and top 20 at adult alternative and adult contemporary.
More from Variety
ACM Noms Led by Maren Morris, Dan + Shay, Thomas Rhett; Keith Urban Set to Host
A Country Music Conference Dares Wonder: Could 2020 Be 'the Year of the Woman'?
CMT Throws a Data Party to Prove Country Fans Really Do Want More Female Voices
But Morris will be hitting the road on the heels of something more momentous than a hit single: her first child is due in March.
“I don’t want to take a year off,” Morris recently told Kix Brooks as she celebrated her latest No. 1 on his “American Country Countdown” program. “I don’t want to, like, be away from my fans for that long. I’m still, at my core, a workhorse, and I love performing… so my turnaround after I deliver is pretty short.” She admitted her attitude “could change after I have my baby, but I think that it’ll be good for me to have an end point, because if it’s just open-ended, I’m gonna [have] cabin fever, going stir-crazy in the house… It’s kind of nice to have a goal to be like, ‘Okay, I have two months,’ to not put pressure on myself but to get it back together, bring him on the road with me, because that’s gonna be the reality. He’s gonna be a tour bus baby, so it makes me feel like I can do motherhood and my career and not have to compartmentalize them.”
She’s performing almost right up to the due date, playing a major gig at the Houston Rodeo March 7. Then she’ll be off-duty till a May 24 festival date at California’s BottleRock Napa Valley gathering. Her headlining dates begin June 5 at Boston’s Rockland Trust Bank Pavilion, which may count as a warmup for another festival date two nights later at New York’s Governors Ball. She only has three concerts slated for June and four in July, but the pace of the tour picks up in August and September.
Morris won’t be a single mother on the road. Whatever other dates he may be planning to tag along on, her husband, singer-songwriter Ryan Hurd, is slated to serve as an opening act on 11 of the summer dates. James Arthur and Caitlyn Smith will also rotate through as support acts.
Morris’ tour schedule:
March 7: Houston, TX
Houston Rodeo
May 24: Napa, CA
BottleRock Napa Valley
June 5: Boston, MA
Rockland Trust Bank Pavilion*‡
June 6: Gilford, NH
Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion*‡
June 7: New York, NY
Governors Ball Music Festival
July 10: Calgary, AB
The Scotiabank Saddledome
July 24: Boca Raton, FL
Mizner Park Amphitheatre*‡
July 25: Jacksonville, FL
Daily’s Place*‡
July 30: Cleveland, OH
Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica*‡
August 7: Kansas City, MO
Starlight Amphitheatre*‡
August 8: Indianapolis, IN
Farm Bureau Insurance Lawn at White River State Park*‡
August 21: Atlanta, GA
Ameris Bank Amphitheater*
August 22: Raleigh, NC
Red Hat Amphitheater*‡
August 22-23: Lexington, KY
Railbird Festival
August 27: Detroit, MI
Freedom Hill Amphitheatre*
August 28: Grand Rapids, MI
Van Andel Arena*
September 4-6: Aspen, CO
Jazz Aspen Snowmass
* with Ryan Hurd
† with James Arthur
‡ with Caitlyn Smith
Best of Variety
Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
