Bob Dylan is joining Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival this summer, performing at all 25 shows during the annual touring festival.
The legendary musicians and longtime friends will be accompanied by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss on the first leg of the tour, which kicks off June 21 in Alpharetta, Ga. John Mellencamp will join the second leg on July 29, with his first Outlaw show set for North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, Calif.
Dylan and Nelson are billed to play Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl on July 31, where Mellencamp and “Sober & Skinny” singer Brittney Spencer will join them. Nelson notably played the Bowl last summer when he celebrated his 90th birthday with many of his friends, including Neil Young, Beck, George Strait, Kris Kristofferson, Snoop Dogg, Chris Stapleton, Miranda Lambert, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews and the Chicks.
As for Outlaw, known for its consortium of progressive-country and Americana acts, Celisse and Southern Avenue will play various stops and Billy Strings will join the tour for one show at the Gorge Amphitheatre outside Seattle on Aug. 10.
The festival wraps on Sept. 17 in Buffalo, N.Y., and tickets go on sale Friday. Citi card members can access presale tickets from Tuesday until Thursday through the Citi Entertainment program.
“This year’s Outlaw Music Festival Tour promises to be the biggest and best yet with this lineup of legendary artists,” Nelson said Tuesday in a statement on the festival website. “I am thrilled to get back on the road again with my family and friends playing the music we love for the fans we love.”
Among those friends is Dylan, who will join the full tour for the first time. Nelson’s “Heartland” co-writer previously performed a few shows with the festival in 2017. More recently, the “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and “The Times They Are a-Changin’” singer-songwriter has mostly performed at intimate theaters in North America.
The Outlaw Music Festival debuted in Scranton, Pa., in 2016. Its success prompted Nelson, his longtime manager Mark Rothbaum and promoter Blackbird Presents to turn it into a touring franchise, expanding to 10 cities in 2017 and 18 in 2018. The festival made its first stop in L.A. in 2018 when Nelson and his Family Band were joined at the Bowl by Grateful Dead alumnus Phil Lesh & Friends along with Sturgill Simpson and Margo Price, Nelson’s son Lukas Nelson and his band, the Promise of the Real, and Particle Kid.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
