Barely taking a breather after her own tour ends, Amy Grant announced this week she will embark on a 15-stop tour with her husband, country star Vince Gill, starting in early December.
The closest the “Christmas With Amy & Vince Tour” comes to Lancaster County is Baltimore, where the superstar duo will perform Wednesday, Dec. 10, at the city’s storied Lyric Opera House.
That comes just a few weeks after Grant, performing on her own, comes through Hershey, in the Hershey Theatre on Thursday, Nov. 20, and then Philadelphia, at the Tower Theatre, two evenings later.
On their subsequent tour that starts Dec. 4, Grant and Gill, the Grammy-and-many-other-awards-winning husband-and-wife team, will be backed by a 12-piece band that features a horn section and two backup singers … one of them Gill’s daughter, Jenny.
Today, Grant, who of course for many years was the best-known performer in Christian music, is releasing her first new Christmas album in nine years, “The Christmas Collection.”
It includes the new “Baby It’s Christmas,” a song co-written by Grant and Gill.
The duo’s Christmas tour will wrap up Dec. 22 and 23 in another famous venue, Nashville’s famous Ryman Auditorium.
Another tour on its way is from a new group attracting lots of “buzz,” talk and airplay, the band Starfield.
Starfield, from Canada, brings its “I Will Go” tour to the U.S. with another up-and-coming Christian band, Above The Golden State, as the opening act.
The title track, “I Will Go,” is Starfield’s best-known song, while Above The Golden State (they’re from Portland, Ore.) has a climbing hit of their own in the catchy song, “Sound of Your Name,” that’s separating it from the rest of the new-artist pack.
The closest the tour gets to us, alas, is in Pittsburgh on Friday, Oct. 31, and then that Sunday, Nov. 2, in Englewood, N.J.
As someone who once saw Switchfoot open for the Supertones at Lancaster Mennonite High School. I can say this from experience … you never know when a band playing a smaller venue will be arena-sized the next time they come around.