Iconic guitarist, songwriter, vocalist and 3-time Grammy award-winner Brian Setzer has confirmed a 12-date fall tour coinciding with a new solo album. Marking his first live shows in over four years, the “Rockabilly Riot” tour will kick off on September 27 and include a stop in Cincinnati, OH at Taft Theatre on October 3. Yates McKendree will join the show as support.
For these dates, Setzer will be joined by, in his words, an “international rockabilly band, Chris D’Rozario from Melbourne, Australia and Juan Laurios from Mexico City.”
“I’ve had a pretty long break, and I needed it. I’m renewed and really want to play live again. I want to just get out on the road with this kick-ass little 3-piece band and start playing.”
The shows will be highlighted by Setzer’s guitar assault and rockin’ style on the most electrifying songs from his 40-year career as a solo artist, leader of The Brian Setzer Orchestra and as a Stray Cat. He adds, “I think fans can always expect that I’m going to play the hits. I also want to play some solo guitar and little things I’ve worked out by myself. I’ve never really gotten to do that, so it's going to be something new.”
His set lists will include “some of the favorite covers I’m doing now. I haven’t recorded it, but I really like playing my version of ‘Georgia On My Mind.’ And then with the band, I want to play a new song ‘Girl On The Billboard’ because it tells a fun story.”
These shows come as Brian is preparing to release a new solo album due in the fall, his first since 2021’s Gotta Have The Rumble. Additional details about the forthcoming album will be announced in the coming weeks.
About BRIAN SETZER
Iconic guitarist, songwriter, vocalist and 3-time Grammy award-winner Brian Setzer has achieved one career milestone after another. He’s sold millions of albums and is a "Musician's Musician" credited with continually taking chances with innovative and daring musical styles. Setzer is widely credited for taking two forgotten genres, rockabilly and swing, adding his own blend of gunpowder and rockin’ style, and completely reinventing and single-handedly resurrecting them in the process. Along the way, he has scored chart-topping hits, sold 13 million records and received the Orville H. Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award throughout his decorated career as founder/leader of the Stray Cats, his 19-piece Brian Setzer Orchestra, and as a solo artist. He is consistently cited as one of the world’s greatest living guitarists, and has a best-selling, extensive line of elite Gretsch signature model guitars bearing his name. Setzer is also, fittingly, in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. On the live front, Setzer has headlined venues and festivals worldwide, including a 1983 headlining slot on the iconic US Festival in California, The Playboy Jazz Festival, a three-night, sold-out headlining run at the Hollywood Bowl with the 98-piece Philharmonic Orchestra, Woodstock ’99, and performing in front of more than 150,000 people as headliner of the Montreal Jazz Festival. His reach also includes films and TV, where his roles include portraying rockabilly pioneer Eddie Cochran in the 1987 film, La Bamba, Fox’s “Beverly Hills 90210,” among many others, and he is one of the few musicians to be animated in an episode of “The Simpsons” in 2002. That same year, Setzer was personally requested to induct Chet Atkins into the 17th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Setzer had the honor of being invited in 2006 to perform at the White House for the President of the United States. Also in 2006, he was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame with the Stray Cats. In 2014, Setzer received the distinct honor of being asked by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. to donate a replica of his original 1959 Gretsch 6120 “Stray Cat” guitar, joining an elite collection of iconic treasures at the museum.
