Barenaked Ladies, Blues Traveler, Big Head Todd & The Monsters, Cracker

LAST SUMMER ON EARTH TOUR – Featuring Barenaked Ladies, Blues Traveler, Big Head Todd & The Monsters and Cracker on Thursday, July 12
 
Multi-platinum pop rock group the BARENAKED LADIES have announced their “Last Summer On Earth,” a freewheeling road show featuring BLUES TRAVELER, BIG HEAD TODD & THE MONSTERS and CRACKER. Launching July 6^th at the Toledo Zoo Amphitheatre in Toledo, OH, the much-anticipated tour will hit more than 30 arenas and amphitheaters across the country, with tickets going on sale at Ticketmaster.com and Livenation.com
 
“Last Summer On Earth” Tour featuring Barenaked Ladies, Blues Traveler, Big Head Todd & The Monsters and Cracker will play Raleigh Amphitheater on July 12.
 
Tickets go on sale Friday March 23 at 10am at LiveNation.com, Ticketmaster, select Walmart stores or charge by phone 800-745-3000, Hardee’s Thickburger Box Office at Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion and the Progress Energy Center Box office.
 
“I love playing outside in the summertime,” says Barenaked Ladies vocalist/guitarist Ed Robertson. “To travel and hang around with a bunch of bands, and get a chance to do some collaboration is part of the magic of a summer tour.” As for the tour’s moniker, Robertson says, “I’m a man of science, and therefore put zero stock in all of the disastrous predictions about the year 2012. But JUST IN CASE, I think everybody should come out and see one last great summer concert tour!  It can’t hurt, right? Here’s hoping the Mayans just got tired of chiseling!”
 
It’s been a busy couple of weeks for the Barenaked Ladies, who recently announced that they’ll be composing an original score for Animal House: The Musical, a theatrical production based on the popular 1978 comedy.  In addition, May 8^th sees the group releasing their long-awaited rarities album Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One Before! The album features 12 rare and previously unreleased tracks including demos, b-sides, remixes, and live recordings from 1994 to 2003.  Over the course of the past twenty-two years, Barenaked Ladies have amassed an international fanbase whose members number in the millions. Their plethora of career highlights includes eight Juno Awards and multiple Grammy nominations, more than 14 million albums sold worldwide and a plethora of hit singles, including No. 1 hit “One Week,” as well as “Pinch Me, “Brian Wilson,” “If I Had $1,000,000” and many more, along with the theme song for the hit CBS television series, “The Big Bang Theory.” Last year they released All In Good Time, their 11^th studio album and first as a four-piece (Ed Robertson – guitar/vocals, Jim Creeggan – bass/vocals, Kevin Hearn – keyboard/vocals and Tyler Stewart – drums/vocals).
 
Over the course of their illustrious career, Blues Traveler have sold more than 10 million combined units worldwide, played over 2,000 live shows in front of more than 30 million people, and, in “Run-Around,” had the longest-charting radio single in Billboard history, which earned them a Grammy® for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. Their movie credits include Blues Brothers 2000, Kingpin, Wildflowers and others. A television favorite, they have been featured on “Saturday Night Live,” “Austin City Limits,” VH1’s “Behind the Music” and they hold the record for the most appearances of any artist on “The Late Show with David Letterman.” Their brand-new, two-CD retrospective,  25, offers an impressive overview of that career, with one disc featuring “greatest hits” like “Run-Around,” “Hook,” “But Anyway” and “Carolina Blues” (representing every one of their nine studio albums) and a brand-new cover of Sublime’s “What I Got,” as well as a second disc which includes b-sides, unreleased demos and rarities.
 
Colorado’s Big Head Todd & The Monsters (“Bittersweet,” “Broken Hearted Savior,” “Resignation Superman”) are known for their timeless songwriting, powerful live performances, and unique sound – all reasons the band has garnered a sizable loyal following during their two decades making music.  Today, the ever-evolving outfit continues to sell out venues, including their always-epic annual shows at Red Rocks. In 2011, the group helped make history when they performed “Blue Sky” to the crew of space shuttle Discovery, becoming the only band to ever play a shuttle Wake Up Call live from NASA’s Mission Control. Last year, the band gathered some of the greatest living blues musicians to record the critically acclaimed 100 Years of Robert Johnson (Ryko/Big Records), a stirring tribute album featuring 10 potent interpretations of some of the most vital and durable music of the past century. Big Head Blues Club, as the ad hoc ensemble called itself, featured a rotating cast of both blues legends and keepers of the flame including B.B. King, the now deceased Hubert Sumlin, Honeyboy Edwards (who also recently passed, at age 96) and many others.
 
Cracker has been described as a lot of things over the years: alt-rock, Americana, insurgent-country, and have even had the terms punk and classic-rock thrown at them. But more than anything Cracker are survivors. Cofounders David Lowery and Johnny Hickman have been at it for 20 years now – amassing nine studio albums (their most recent, 2009’s critically acclaimed Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey), multiple gold records, thousands of live performances, hit songs that are still in current radio rotation around the globe, and a worldwide fan base – that despite the major sea-changes within the music industry – continues to grow each year. Along with longtime drummer Frank Funaro (since 1998’s Gentleman’s Blues) and bassist Sal Maida (since 2006’s Greenland), this uniquely American band has no intentions of slowing down. Look for new Cracker material to surface sometime next year.
 
Additional info and dates on the “Last Summer On Earth” tour will be announced in the coming weeks.
BNL Fan Club presale will begin at 10am local venue on Tuesday and will include exclusive VIP and meet and greet packages. Go to http://bit.ly/bnl-presale  for more info.
www.lastsummeronearth.com
For more information go to www.livenation.com.