keen tour

Robert Earl Keen

Texas Uprising with Todd Snider, John R. Miller, Hayes Carll, Kevin Galloway and Kelsey Waldon

Don't miss your chance to see the legend live in his home state for the final time!

The road is ending soon. legendary texas songwriter and entertainer robert earl keen will wrap up 41 years on the road with the final leg of his final tour., keen made the announcement in january, 2022, with a personal video posted on his social media accounts. “i’ve been blessed with a lifetime of brilliant, talented, colorful, electrical, magical folks throughout my life,” keen said. “this chorus of joy, this parade of passion, this bull rush of creativity, this colony of kindness and generosity are foremost in my thoughts today. it’s with a mysterious concoction of joy and sadness that i want to tell you that as of september 4, 2022, i will no longer tour or perform publicly.”, a houston native, robert has grown into one of lone star state's most revered singer-songwriters, following in the footsteps of his friends guy clark and townes van zandt. in 2019, at a homecoming at the houston rodeo, robert performed with his college friend lyle lovett. the old friends opened the show for george strait to a record-breaking audience of more than 80,000., keen and his band hit the road, going out 180 days a year, to play dance halls, roadhouses, theaters, and festival grounds with diverse crowds of college kids, serious singer-songwriter fans, and plenty of true believers. in 2018, keen returned to college station to accept the texas a&m distinguished alumni award. the prestigious honor has been granted to only a few hundred of texas a&m’s half a million alumni. the award recognizes aggies who have achieved excellence in their chosen professions, made meaningful contributions to texas a&m university, and in their local communities., keen will continue to write music and create, host his popular podcast, support young artists, and follow his artistic muse wherever it takes him..

Reserved Pit Price: $139.50 Reserved Prices: $109.50, $89.50, $79.50, $69.50, $59.50, $49.50 No lawn seating is available for this show. Premium seats (Aisle seats) increase prices by $20.

Please make note of the STRICT bag size requirement .

To receive text updates about this show, text  rek22 to (877) 350-1693 ..

There is a STRICT bag size requirement for this show. All bags and purses (unless clear) must be smaller than 4.5" x 6.5". Clear bags must be smaller than 12" x 12".

Tentative set times:

Kelsey Waldon at 2:00 PM

Kevin Galloway at 3:00 PM

Hayes Carll at 4:15 PM

John R Miller & Chloe at 5:45 PM

Todd Snider at 7:00 PM

Please note that these set times are tentative and subject to change on the day of the concert.

Presented by:

Before you go... Know the Clear Bag Policy

Before you go... Download your tickets to the Ticketmaster app on your phone

Before you go... Know where to park and arrive early

Book Your Hotel

Season Seats

Know Before You Go

Latest News

Mailing List

Robert Earl Keen

All upcoming events.

Birchmere | Alexandria, VA

Latest setlist, robert earl keen on march 8, 2024.

Albert B. Alkek Library, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas

Note: Sun Radio Sessions broadcast

Popular Tracks

‘Texas is just in me’: Americana legend Robert Earl Keen reflects on retiring from touring after 41 years

“The road goes on forever, and the party never ends.”

For generations of Texans, when singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen sang about it, it seemed almost like a promise, even if everyone knew it was just too good to be true.

And so it was bittersweet as accolades poured in prior to Keen’s final concert of his World Tour of Texas recently. After 41 years on the road – some 20 albums, songs like “Feelin’ Good Again,” “Corpus Christi Bay,” “The Front Porch Song” – the realization is slowly sinking in among fans of the Houston-born Americana music legend that the road may not go on forever, after all.

On his decision to retire from touring, Keen said that, having seen other entertainers go way beyond their prime, he never wanted to be just a shadow of himself.

“I thought that that was no way to leave your audience or leave yourself, you know – that thought was with me from the time I was a little kid,” Keen said. “And I felt like I was starting to slip a little bit. I felt like I was just not as excited about it. And it was a lot harder than it had been in the past. And I didn’t want to get to the point where it was way too hard to stop. I wanted to stop when I was still, you know, feeling it and being excited about it.

“I finally realized, kind of almost like an epiphany: I woke up in my bunk in December of last year while we were doing some Christmas shows. And I was thinking about this movie “Training Day” with Denzel Washington, and there are a couple of scenes in there where he gets right in somebody’s face and he says, “Make a decision, make a decision.” And I thought, yeah, I have to make a decision. So I just kind of ran through my calendar in my head of what I had to get done in the next few months and decided, okay, the fourth of September, that’s it."

In a speech last month at his final tour stop in Helotes, after being presented with a proclamation from the Texas Music Office, Keen noted that Nanci Griffith had been a mentor to him.

“I don’t want to overstate it, but she was really like an angel for me,” Keen said. “Because she would come in at times – and I just thought I was, you know, stopped dead in the water – and she’d say, ‘You know, I just recorded one of your songs; are you going to make a record? I was going to sing on your record.'”

So Griffith sang on his record. She also took Keen on tour and sat down with him a few times to tell him where she was playing nationally, which helped him create his own map to play outside of Texas.

“She never did anything to ask for anything in return. It was always just out of her own generosity. I was so happy to be part of that,” Keen said. “She helped me in every way – in a musical sense, and just sort of making me feel more confident about who and what I was.”

Keen said he’s always had an ability to write specifically rhyming poetry, from the time he was 6 or 7 years old. When he started playing guitar, it was a perfect match.

“I could play this guitar and I can, you know, write these little poems or these little rhymes and make it into a song,” he said. “So, you know, I dabbled with that for a while, but by the time I got where I recorded things, I was really locked into the whole world of songwriting and making songs match the music. And that was something that came relatively easy for me.”

Keen has also never believed in following rules about what a song should be.

“I still, like, experiment with just whole different setups of songs, you know, not just a verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus kind of thing. It would be like, full-blown songs that had no rhyme whatsoever. Or here’s a song that only works with the hook over and over that’d be more like a Dylan-esque sort of thing.”

Keen said that, in today’s country music landscape, the loss of great independent stations has led to a small number of decision-makers who put songs on the radio with very strict guidelines about what those songs say and how they sound.

“Thematically, what’s going on in country is just: ‘Here’s my truck; here’s my girl, and man, my girl is a queen. And that’s the best thing ever. And I love this town, and I love this state,'” he said. “It’s all about this sort of positive, not-exactly-truthful sort of theme that they’re presenting. But if you’re an artist and you’re a songwriter, if you’re not writing towards that, that will not get on the radio. So it’s too strict; the boundaries are too tight. And that’s why we’re hearing the same old stuff over and over.”

Had this been the case once upon a time, Keen’s not sure he’d have a career – but he says that, as it is, he wouldn’t have a career without non-commercial stations all over the U.S.

“And that’s because I was just truly an outlier. And that never did bother me; it all worked for me. And those stations still exist and there’s still that going on,” he said. “In Texas, what’s happened is, as far as I understand now, there’s a ton of radio stations that are playing exclusively Texas music. So it’s created its own market, and it’s working for all these guys. However, to get outside of that, as soon as you say that, you know, ‘I’m doing all this great stuff in Texas,’ they kind of start turning their head a little bit on you, and they kind of go, ‘Oh, yeah, right. That’s great to hear.’ You know, it’s not always a boon to say that you’re a part of the Texas movement, except for the fact that within this state they’ve created enough of a market where people really make a living and they can play, you know, to the end of time here in this state. Getting out of the state, I see a lot of them struggle. I mean, they’re doing better than they were. But it takes a lot of work to get out there.”

As longtime fans know, Texas plays a prominent role in Keen’s music. He says he has a great love for the state as it is, geographically and culturally.

“There is really no end to variety of people and topography in this state. And for a writer, you need not go any further than this,” he said. “Someone was asking me yesterday about why, if I went out all the time and went all over the United States and played, why did I always write about Texas? And my answer to that was, I always create a backdrop of Texas because it’s just in me. I like to start with the backdrop – some kind of airbrush painting almost of, you know, whatever place that I think of that I’ve been in the state – and then I put in characters and I make them start moving. Now, the characters can be from anywhere, but the the backdrops are always this state.”

The road crisscrossing Texas and beyond has ended for Keen. But how about the party?

“With me, absolutely not. The party will never end,” he said. “I’m not retired from playing shows. But the business of being on the road took up about 80% of my life. And that wasn’t just out there on the road – that was when I’d come home, that would be working towards the next tour or working towards the Christmas show way down the line. I just never had really any real life as far as for myself or for my family. I wanted to at least have, you know, where I’m still up and moving around, I still wanted to have that connection and make that the priority in my life.”

While he may no longer be touring, Keen’s got plenty of projects on the horizon, from his Americana Podcast: The 51st State to three records planned for release in the next year: a live album from his final show at Floore’s Country Store in Helotes, a stripped-down studio record of songs he loves, and the Western Chill album with his band, including a graphic novel and songbook – “it’s what I call my Hill Country multimedia project” – that has been in the works for a couple of years. And don’t forget about songwriting at his ranch in Kerrville.

“I’ll always write songs. I’m writing songs and I built this video studio in the last couple of years, and I will do some streaming here pretty soon. I have no lack of things that I’m doing nor I want to do,” Keen said. “Most of what I’m looking forward to is just getting back to, you know, sitting down and writing and not always doing things on the fly. Getting back to reading like I used to – I got where I just almost couldn’t even finish a book anymore. So I’m back to, you know, a stack of five books next to my bed now. And, you know, hanging out with my wife, which I really enjoy; we’ve been together for 36 years. It’s great to just not be on the run and not going, ‘see you later’ or ‘hi, how’s it going?’ and then, you know, be out the door. Just sitting and being is enough for me right now.”

And in announcing his intention to retire from touring eight months before his final show on the road – something he says he hasn’t seen anyone else do – Keen hopes he’s created a blueprint for fellow musicians to follow in the future.

“There’s a lot of them that really don’t know how to get out. And I feel like I’ve really created some kind of map to say, ‘you know, I can do this,'” he said. “The whole idea of going on for another eight months was to, you know, play to all your fans and not just disappear from the planet. And that was one of the things that I really feel like I achieved. And it was in an effort to, you know, help other people.”

Keen will continue to pay it forward – and is even toying with the idea of creating a kind of collective to help other artists.

“I feel that I should be able to turn around and help everybody. I have made every mistake anybody’s ever made. I have fought every fight that anyone could ever have,” he said. “And so I do have a great sense of where people are going right, and where they’re going wrong. You know, I’m not trying to change anybody’s life. I’m just saying that there are some real easy ways to fix some problems that people don’t even realize exist.

“You know, that’s my role in life. I mean, I think that’s everybody’s role in life. You get to a certain point, you can consider yourself an expert, guru, whatever you want to call yourself. But I think you turn around and help people. What else are you going to get out of this? Just a bunch of self-aggrandizement? I mean, that doesn’t help me. I don’t even like it when people are, like, overly complimentary. I think in terms of like, what should you do towards the end of your life to make it worthwhile? And I think that the thing to do is like help people in the same area or the same, you know, job description that you’ve been in all your life.”

To hear more from Robert Earl Keen, check out an extended interview in the audio player at the top of this story.

If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it  here . Your gift helps pay for everything you find on  texasstandard.org  and  KUT.org . Thanks for donating today.

Shop the brand-new re-mastered album, including rarities, demos & b-sides, on 1LP, 2LP, 3CD & box set.

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

Keep up to date with all of the latest news, music & live announcements

• 5:47 p.m. Thu, April 4th

• International
• Black Experience
• Haute Shots

Robert Earl Keen's World Tour of Texas Incudes Texas Uprising in Houston on August 20

Style magazine newswire | 5/24/2022, 12:14 p.m..

The road is ending soon. Legendary Texas songwriter and entertainer Robert Earl Keen will wrap up 41 years on the road with the final leg of his final tour in his home state of Texas from August 4 - September 4.

Retiring from performing at the top of his game, Keen’s World Tour of Texas begins August 4 in Corpus Christi, and includes stops at Texas institutions, including ACL Live at the Moody Theater and Billy Bob’s. The tour also sees the revival of REK’s festival concept Texas Uprising coming to Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in Houston, TX, on August 20. Robert’s final public concert will be September 4 at John T. Floores Country Store in Helotes, Texas, followed by a fan appreciation party at the same venue on September 5.

Keen made his retirement from the road announcement in January with a personal video posted on his social media accounts. “I’ve been blessed with a lifetime of brilliant, talented, colorful, electrical, magical folks throughout my life,” Keen said. “This chorus of joy, this parade of passion, this bull rush of creativity, this colony of kindness and generosity are foremost in my thoughts today. It’s with a mysterious concoction of joy and sadness that I want to tell you that as of September 4, 2022, I will no longer tour or perform publicly.”

With a catalog of 21 albums, his band of stellar musicians, and many thousands of shows under his belt, POLLSTAR ranked Keen in its Top 20 Global Concert Tours in July, 2021. Keen has blazed a peer, critic, and fan-lauded trail that's earned him living-legend status in the Americana music world.

The Americana genre was officially recognized by the music industry in 1998 and Robert was the first artist to be featured on The Gavin Report’s Americana Music Chart and on the debut cover of its magazine.

A Houston native, Robert has grown into one of Lone Star State's most revered singer-songwriters, following in the footsteps of his friends Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. In 2019, at a homecoming at the Houston Rodeo, Robert performed with his college friend Lyle Lovett. The old friends opened the show for George Strait to a record-breaking audience of more than 80,000.

Keen was weaned on classic rock and Willie Nelson records. By the time he entered Texas A&M University, Robert taught himself how to the play the guitar and turned his poetic musings into songs. These early days are captured in spirit on the Keen/Lyle Lovett co-write, "The Front Porch Song," which both artists recorded on their respective debut albums, and in Happy Prisoner, REK’s bluegrass recording.

From the beginning, Robert took the road less travelled. He produced and financed his first album, No Kinda Dancer. Robert began to make a name for himself when he won the Kerrville Folk Festival's prestigious New Folk Songwriting Competition.

After his debut release, Robert moved to Nashville. He worked at the legendary Hatch Show Print as a pressman. When he returned to Texas, Robert had a publishing deal, a new label, and a national booking agent. He released The Live Album and West Textures, the seminal album which debuted the rowdy, rockin’ fan favorite "The Road Goes on Forever."

Robert had no idea that his song about a couple of ill-fated lovers running afoul of the law would catapult into the stratosphere of classic Americana, but he credits DJ Steve Kaufman of San Antonio radio station KRIO for helping to start the fire. "Steve talked the station into doing sort of a free-form programming format during ‘drive time,’” Robert says. “It was anything he liked, which turned out to be great music and a last glimpse at the influence of the DJ on radio. With an organic boost from Kaufman, I went from playing the front room at Gruene Hall for a max of 150 people to playing a show in San Antonio for 1,500 people. That was a moment that kept me going; because before that, I'd been working for 10 years and had a lot of rejection but very little success."

Fellow Texas icon Joe Ely recorded both "The Road Goes on Forever" and "Whenever Kindness Fails" on his album, Love and Danger, and the secret was out on Keen's credentials as a songwriter's songwriter. Robert’s acclaim as a writer has earned him membership in the Texas Heritage Songwriter Hall of Fame, The Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, and the Texas Institute of Letters.

Two more albums, A Bigger Piece of Sky and Gringo Honeymoon, brimmed with instant classics like "Corpus Christi Bay," "Gringo Honeymoon," "Dreadful Selfish Crime," and "Merry Christmas From the Family”.

Continuing to steer clear of the country mainstream, Robert’s authentic alternative to three-and-a-half minute repetitious radio tunes formed a perfect storm of literate song craft, razor wit and a killer band. Robert stirred up a grassroots sensation not seen since the '70s heyday of maverick outlaw country.

Keen and his band hit the road, going out 180 days a year, to play dance halls, roadhouses, theaters, and festival grounds with diverse crowds of college kids, serious singer-songwriter fans, and plenty of true believers. The live performance, the show, is an essential experience for REK fans. BMI acknowledged Keen’s contribution as a road warrior in 2015 when they honored Robert with the inaugural Troubadour Award.

In 2018, Keen returned to College Station to accept the Texas A&M Distinguished Alumni Award. The prestigious honor has been granted to only a few hundred of Texas A&M’s half a million alumni. The award recognizes Aggies who have achieved excellence in their chosen professions, made meaningful contributions to Texas A&M University, and in their local communities.

Keen continues to blaze a trail for other artists in partnership with producer Clara Rose and their Americana Podcast. In 2019, Americana Podcast launched with the inaugural episode featuring Jamestown Revival and Lucero. Subsequent Americana Podcasts include artists Billy Strings, Lori McKenna, Drew Holcomb, I’m With Her, and many more.

Robert will continue to write music and create, host his popular podcast, support young artists, and follow his artistic muse where ever it takes him.

Robert’s personal video announcement HERE

World Tour of Texas

Local Presale tickets Thursday May 26, 10 am to 10 pm. All tickets on sale Friday May 27 at 10 am.

August 4 - Concrete Street Amphitheater, Corpus Christi

August 5 - Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, San Antonio

August 6 - KOKE Fest, Hutto

August 12 - Starlight Ranch, Amarillo

August 17-18 - Gruene Hall, New Braunfels

August 19 - The Grand 1894 Opera House, Galveston

August 20 - Texas Uprising, The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, Houston (line-up announcement June 7, pre-sale June 8-9, on sale June 10)

August 21 - Julie Rogers Theater, Beaumont

August 24 - The Factory Deep Ellum, Dallas

August 25 - Billy Bob’s Texas, Fort Worth

August 26 - Wagner Noel Performing Arts Center, Midland

August 28-29 - ACL Live at the Moody Theater, Austin

September 1 - Floore’s Country Store, Helotes (SOLD OUT)

September 2 - TBA, College Station

September 3-4 - Floore’s Country Store, Helotes (SOLD OUT)

Also of interest

Featured Videos

View our e-editon, latest videos.

FURIOSA : A MAD MAX SAGA …

Congressman Al Green Speaks on Domicide …

Social Media

Robert Earl Keen Verified

Concerts and tour dates, bandsintown merch.

Live Photos of Robert Earl Keen

Fan Reviews

Fans Also Follow

About robert earl keen.

• Moscow concerts Moscow concerts Moscow concerts See all Moscow concerts ( Change location ) Today · Next 7 days · Next 30 days
• Most popular artists worldwide
• Trending artists worldwide

• Tourbox for artists

Search for events or artists

• Sign up Log in

• Get the app
• Moscow concerts
• Change location
• Popular Artists
• Live streams
• Deutsch Português
• Popular artists

Robert Earl Keen  

• On tour: yes
• Robert Earl Keen is not playing near you. View all concerts
• Moscow, Russian Federation Change location

75,009 fans get concert alerts for this artist.

Join Songkick to track Robert Earl Keen and get concert alerts when they play near you.

Nearest concert to you

Touring outside your city

Be the first to know when they tour near Moscow, Russian Federation

Join 75,009 fans getting concert alerts for this artist

Upcoming concerts (7)

Key West Theater

WhiteWater Amphitheater

Lone Star Jam

Similar artists with upcoming concerts

Tours most with.

Hailing from Houston, Texas, US, Robert Earl Keen Jr. (born January 11th, 1956) came to fame in the 80s and 90s through his country-tinged americana music that displayed a talent for penning honest, poetic songs.

Born to an oil executive father and an attorney mother, Keen was exposed to their love of folk and country, to which he would later blend when constructing his own style. It was quite late by the time Keen started to learn the guitar, waiting until he had started attending Texas A&M University, although he was a keen writer of poetry all throughout high school.

He recorded his self-financed debut album, "No Kinda Dancer," in 1984, which made a splash on the Austin, US, music scene. He moved to Nashville shortly after, mixing with the likes of Lyle Lovett and K.D. Lang, who had begun to create top ten country hits. Soon he returned back to Texas, finding inspiration there for his second album, "West Textures," which contained the crime-spree tale, "The Road Goes on Forever," becoming one of Keen's signature songs. Signed to Sugar Hill Records, he waited until 1993 to follow this release, with 1993's "A Bigger Piece of Sky," containing the hit song "Corpus Christi Bay." "Gringo Honeymoon" followed a year later, which featured the guitar talents of Gurf Morfix.

Keen continued to grow in popularity release after release, with a relentless touring schedule that would often see him attend over 200 dates a year bolstering his presence on the country music scene. In 2001, he gained his biggest chart success with "Gravitational Forces," which reached number 10 on the US Country Charts and number one on the US Heat charts. His subsequent albums continued to fair well in the country charts, all being in the top 40. Keen also helped coordinate the annual Texas Uprising festival, which took place in several venues in the state, acting as a talent festival for up-and-coming artists.

Live reviews

We are all so happy that Robert Earl Keen and the Robert Earl Keen Band put on four shows for us over here in South Florida.

We were able to make two of the four shows.

The first one was the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall south of Jacksonville near the beach.

The venue was incredible, a renovated church.

We drove up from West Palm Beach a very scary drive on I-295 about gave us a heart attack!

Robert even mentioned that the roads were trying his nerves. But we all made it safe.

The crowd at the show was such a fun crowd. All die hard REK fans. Very lively ans excited for the show. They never stopped clapping, dancing and singing.

One of the things we were very impressed with was the opening act was a local artist that was given the opportunity to play three songs before the main act. The act of offering opportunity to fellow local musicians says a lot about Robert Earl Keen and his management.

The Pre-Show song that was played was also a hats off to South Floridians. John Andersons song "Seminole Wind" was a nice surprise for us and shows empathy and understanding of the people and places the band visits.

We saw the Christmas show "Merry Christmas to the Fam-o-Lee" in December in Nashville at the Ryman so we had no expectations of this show at all. We knew it was going to be a completely different type of concert.

When the band took the stage opened with "Shades of Gray" the crowd was on their feet immediately. The set included many of the fan favorites as well as a few surprises. My favorite was "Hot Corn Cold Corn" featured on the new release Flores Country Store double CD.

Robert also did a solo three song mini set of quick songs somewhat like John Prine would do.

As usual the band played to perfection. Robert was able to control the crowd with ease as they were a bit rowdy and having fun. We never left our seats and it was such a blast. The Mandolin, Violin (Fiddle), Tom Brotherton on guitar always blows us away. All I could envision was the mandolin played dressed up as Johnny Paycheck at the Ryman! I think he dressed up as a lot of artists at that show. Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Billy Bird, I think? I digress.

Next was the show at The Parker Playhouse in Ft. Lauderdale three days later. This venue was also small and very intimate. We nailed front row seats so it was a completely different experience. Again there was a duo that opened from the Hollywood, West Palm Beach area. they were fabulous. Again, the John Anderson song.

This concert was COMPLETELY different. It was so refreshing. The show had the same core elements but Tom Brotherton threw in a Grateful Dead song that he nailed and Robert sang Tangled up in Blue by Bob Dylan that just was pure perfection. The band added some different songs to the set we had seen a few days before, mixed it up. That is rarely seen these days.I don't know how Robert remembers all of those words to those songs! We danced a lot obnoxiously right there up front! the crowd was more subdued than the crowd in Jacksonville. But, REK has a huge fan base here in Florida and I hope he comes back again!

Hope to go to the Songwriters Festival in Key West if possible.

We will be tracking the band and will be at another concert if they come through Ithaca, New York, Nashville or Florida. We just can't make the Franklin, Tenn. shows. Next year!

Nancy Branstrom

Report as inappropriate

The night was perfect, the stage was set for two guys in two chairs, two guitars. The great friends came out & talked & sang to us like we were in their living room. They played off each perfectly. We scored front row at a perfect event venue. Both artists were funny, professional & entertaining. We LOVED the show. We loved it so much that we went to Ft Myers & caught them at The Edison Theater the next night. It was a completely different show aside from the perfectly delivered story of Robert Earl Keen & his landlord & how he made time for a man many did not see all that he had to share. It was incredibly honorable of Mr. Keen. This rented home at College Station was where the Front Porch Song was created. Lyle Lovett was very humble in that REK put verses he wrote into the song. Great verses they are!

We try never to miss Robert Earl Keen & the Robert Earl Keen Band when he comes over to Florida. Our first time seeing Lyle & he was awesome. Wish we could have been able to speak with them.

Nancy & JB Branstrom

Texas born Robert Earl Keen Jr is an all American country singer from everything to his name to his style. He is a quintessential country crooner with a great set of country vocals and some pretty hefty guitar skills. He is great at blending country and folk with interesting, poetic and very honest, American lyrics. There is a real sense of nostalgia about this guy, no doubt because he achieved the majority of his success during the 80s and 90s, and thus his songs sound quite out dated. However, they are also incredibly easy to listen to and have an old world feeling to them that can really be appreciated. Tracks such as ‘The Road Goes on Forever’ and ‘Corpus Christi Bay’ have a melancholy feeling to them that adds another dimension to his music and makes them quite emotive. The lyrics are moving if you pay attention to them and it is the brutal honesty of his music that makes it so appealing and that had allowed him to achieve such wonderful success over the years.

How about Robert Earl Keen Jr.? This guy can sing! He can write too. He has eighteen albums under his belt. I can’t even begin to imagine how one would go about constructing a set list from that amount of material.

IT was because of the influence of his older brother, that he got introduced to country artists such as Willie Nelson.

He built his career up playing in pubs and clubs around Austin Texas, building up a following over the years. He wound up moving to Nashville, as all country artists seem to do so, signing with Arista Records. “That Buckin’ Song” showcases his fantastic guitar ability alongside his band who he has such a good back and forth with. “Hello New Orleans” is the next song that has a little bit more depth, bringing a little bit more of a deep-south vibe to the table. The audience are ecstatic about the genius that they are witnessing. “The Great Hank” is a fantastic set closer, leaving the audience applauding for a good five minutes.

Great show. Enjoyed the conversations he had before a few of the songs, story about Lyle Lovett esp. He didn't use the playlist i would have chosen--it didn't include a lot of my favorites like No Kinda Dancer, Ride, I Gotta Go. But then, it is his show. And he has so many songs, he cant include the favorites of everyone in the crowd. I was surprised that the encore did not include Merry Christmas. I have been to 3 shows now, and I thought that was "mandatory" to include it. But, as I observed, it is his show. I will see him again.

Acoustic show with Robert Earl Keen & Lyle Lovett was aweseme - as expected. The natural "banter" between these two long-time friends is authentic and makes for a unique experience. It's highly unusual for artists in this day & age to simply play songs requested by the audience 'on the fly' in the middle of their sets. These two do not disappoint and highly recommend if you haven't seen them together that you make a point of doing so!

Damn! What a great show these two put on! Ive seen Robert Earl Keen probably 8-10 times but I've never seen Lyle Lovette before

I love REK and liked Lyle a lot but after this show I love 'em both! Never realized how funny Lyle is and you can tell these two really get along well. Can't wait to see them again together or on their own!!!

Truly awesome show. To have Robert Earl and Lyle Lovett on the same stage for the whole performance was a night to remember. They complimented each other so we'll. To hear both sing and then they would take turns doing my favorite songs. I truly loved every minute. thanks

Great show, great music great place to listen to music. Robert Earl Keen was awesome. Such a variety of instruments on stage! Roberts voice was as good as it was twenty years ago!

Robert Earl loves his fans and we love him. I enjoy every show.I'm a fan for life. I laughed, cried, and smiled. His shows touch my heart. I gotta go.

Mike Jones, Aiken SC

Posters (21)

Past concerts

Frost Bank Center

View all past concerts

Robert Earl Keen tour dates and tickets 2024-2025 near you

Want to see Robert Earl Keen in concert? Find information on all of Robert Earl Keen’s upcoming concerts, tour dates and ticket information for 2024-2025.

Robert Earl Keen is not due to play near your location currently - but they are scheduled to play 7 concerts across 1 country in 2024-2025. View all concerts.

Next 3 concerts:

• Key West, FL, US
• New Braunfels, TX, US

Next concert:

Popularity ranking:

• Sidewalk Prophets (4769)
• Robert Earl Keen (4770)
• Ronald Isley (4771)

Concerts played in 2024:

Touring history

Most played:

• Dallas - Fort Worth (75)
• Austin (56)
• San Antonio (51)
• Houston (50)
• SF Bay Area (39)

Appears most with:

• Lyle Lovett (108)
• Andrea Davidson (35)
• Waylon Payne (26)
• Randy Rogers Band (16)
• Reckless Kelly (16)

Distance travelled:

Similar artists

• Most popular charts
• API information
• Brand guidelines
• Community guidelines
• Terms of use
• Privacy policy
• Cookies settings
• Cookies policy

Get your tour dates seen everywhere.

• But we really hope you love us.

Experience | Discover | Enjoy

[vc_row foundry_background_style=”bg-secondary” foundry_padding=”pt64 pb64″][vc_column width=”4/6″][vc_column_text]

Most popular

Braga full-day tour.

• Braga , Featured

Braga Walking Tour – 4h

• Autumn , Braga , Spring , Summer , Winter
• Autumn , Featured , Gerês , Spring , Summer , Winter

Guided trails

Horseback riding, short mountain hike, upcoming events.

Book Now [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1483211262561{background-image: url(http://keentours.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/separador_home.jpg?id=2201) !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_empty_space height=”45px”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][foundry_call_to_action_block url=”http://keentours.com/contact-info/” button_text=”contact us”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][foundry_call_to_action_block url=”http://keentours.com/tours/” button_text=”See all tours”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space height=”45px”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row foundry_padding=”pb0″][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_empty_space][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][vc_single_image image=”3081″ onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”http://natural.pt/portal/en/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][vc_single_image image=”2831″ onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”http://www.icnf.pt/portal/turnatur/visit-ap/pnpg”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][vc_single_image image=”2833″ onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”https://rnt.turismodeportugal.pt/RNAAT/VisualizarRegisto_Publico.aspx?RegistoId=38107&Origem=CP”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][vc_single_image image=”4760″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][vc_single_image image=”4777″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][vc_single_image image=”4779″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row foundry_padding=”pt0″][vc_column][foundry_sharing title=”Share it”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[email protected] +351938690513

Certifications

Latest news

Biosphere Certification

Certificação biosphere.

Melhor Destino Europeu 2019

Check our instagram.

© Copyright 2016 - 2024 Keen Tours, Lda | All Rights Reserved

Terms & Conditions

clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

Robert Earl Keen’s melancholy but raucous farewell at the Birchmere

The texas troubadour makes a sentimental and satisfying stop on what he says will be his final tour.

Partying can be such sweet sorrow. Robert Earl Keen’s Friday show at the Birchmere, on a tour designed to let the Texas troubadour say farewell to fans and vice versa, was full of melancholy raucousness.

Keen announced earlier this year that he would stop performing for good after this summer, and the flock that packed the club for the first of two sold-out nights seemed very conscious that the hourglass is running out of sand. Keen, 66, has said health is not a factor in his decision to give up the road; he just had an epiphany during yet another overnight tour bus ride that he didn’t want to die far from home and alone.

Yet Keen seemed frailer than normal on this night. He took a seat at the center of the stage and stayed there, a departure from the stand-and-deliver format of his previous tours. And before he sang a note, Keen gave a long and nostalgic monologue on how hard he had to work as a young artist, back when he was best known for being Lyle Lovett’s college roommate, just to get to a slot as an opening act at the Birchmere, and how much it still means to play the exalted concert hall.

Given the heavy prologue, one couldn’t help but look for deeper meaning in the lyrics. Keen sometimes made it easy. He turned his opening song, “What I Really Mean,” a sweet ballad from 2005 that was originally a love letter to folks back home whom he missed while on the road, into a thank-you to folks who filled the club to say goodbye, changing its last line, “Wish you were here,” to, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Then again, words have always mattered at Keen’s shows, where it sometimes seems as if every fan not only knows every lyric, but also wants everybody to know that they know every lyric, and to prove it by outshouting the next guy. The decibel competition was predictably fierce on “Gringo Honeymoon,” “Corpus Christi Bay” and “Merry Christmas From the Family.”

“Amarillo Highway,” an anthem written by fellow Texan and singing storyteller Terry Allen, was delivered over a ZZ Top-like boogie beat. “Dreadful Selfish Crime” had even Keen banging his head and dancing in his chair. “Shades of Gray,” one of Keen’s many up-tempo crime tunes, came complete with a shredding solo from guitarist Brian Beken. Keen seemed amused by the ferocity of the arrangement. “Turn that crap down, son!” he joked to Beken, the youngest member of his backing trio. (Beken signed on with Keen in 2015. The rhythm section of drummer Tom Van Schaik and bassist Bill Whitbeck has been with Keen since the 1990s.) But nobody really wanted the din diminished.

The glorious noise peaked on “The Road Goes On Forever,” Keen’s best-known story song, as he got to its climactic line, “The road goes on forever and the party never ends.” That song closes as Sonny, its anti-hero protagonist, gets arrested for murder and is condemned to death. In the real world, Keen has sentenced himself only to rest and relaxation. But as Keen ambled back to the dressing room and the lights came up, there was an overwhelming sense that nothing really goes on forever and that something wonderful was ending. Keen, like everybody else in the room, is going to miss this.

Robert Earl Keen I’m Comin’ Home Share this event:

Wed, July 13, 2022 Hartford, CT Doors: 7 PM Show: 8 PM

Ticket INFO

Member Presale: 3/17/22 10 AM Public Onsale: 3/18/22 10 AM

buy tickets ›

▸ Not a member? Join today and receive 10% off! ▸

After 41 years on the road, Robert Earl Keen is embarking on his farewell tour- I’m Comin’ Home .

A Houston native, REK has for three decades been regarded as one of the Lone Star State's finest true Americana singer-songwriters. “Americana" style was officially recognized by the music industry in 1998. Robert Earl Keen was the genre's first artist to be featured on the Americana Music Chart and on the debut cover of the radio trade magazine The Gavin Report featuring Americana.

Now with 21 records to his name, a band of stellar musicians, and thousands of shows under his belt, there is no end in sight to the road ahead. In July of 2021, POLLSTAR ranked Keen on its Top 20 Global Concert Tours, proof that he has blazed a peer, critic, and fan-lauded trail that's earned him living-legend and pioneer status in the Americana music world. 

Robert Earl Keen

Connect with this artist:.

"The road goes on forever ..."

It's not always easy to sum up a career - let alone a life's ambition - so succinctly, but those five words from Robert Earl Keen's calling-card anthem just about do it. You can complete the lyric with the next five words - the ones routinely shouted back at Keen by thousands of fans a night ("and the party never ends!") - just to punctuate the point with a flourish, but it's the part about the journey that gets right to the heart of what makes Keen tick. Some people take up a life of playing music with the goal of someday reaching a destination of fame and fortune; but from the get-go, Keen just wanted to write and sing his own songs, and to keep writing and singing them for as long as possible.

"I always thought that I wanted to play music, and I always knew that you had to get some recognition in order to continue to play music," Keen says. "But I never thought of it in terms of getting to be a big star. I thought of it in terms of having a really, really good career and writing some good songs, and getting onstage and having a really good time."

Now three-decades on from the release of his debut album - with nineteen records to his name, thousands of shows under his belt and still no end in sight to the road ahead - Keen remains as committed to and inspired by his muse as ever. And as for accruing recognition, well, he's done alright on that front, too; from his humble beginnings on the Texas folk scene, he's blazed a peer, critic, and fan-lauded trail that's earned him living- legend (not to mention pioneer) status in the Americana music world. And though the Houston native has never worn his Texas heart on his sleeve, he's long been regarded as one of the Lone Star State's finest (not to mention top-drawing) true singer- songwriters. He was still a relative unknown in 1989 when his third studio album, West Textures, was released - especially on the triple bill he shared at the time touring with legends Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark - but once fellow Texas icon Joe Ely recorded both "The Road Goes on Forever" and "Whenever Kindness Fails" on his 1993 album, Love and Danger , the secret was out on Keen's credentials as a songwriter's songwriter. By the end of the decade, Keen was a veritable household name in Texas, headlining a millennial New Year's Eve celebration in Austin that drew an estimated 200,000 people. A dozen years later, he was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame along with the late, great Van Zandt and his longtime friend from Texas A&M, Lyle Lovett.

The middle child of a geologist father and an attorney mother, Keen was weaned on classic rock (in particular, the psychedelic blues trio Cream) and his older brother's Willie Nelson records - but it was his younger sister's downtown Houston celebrity status as a "world-champion foosball player" that exposed him to the area's acoustic folk scene. By the time he started working on his English degree at Texas A&M, he was teaching himself guitar and setting his poetic musings to song. That in turn led to a college fling with a bluegrass ensemble (featuring his childhood friend Bryan Duckworth, who would continue to play fiddle with Keen well into the '90s) and front-porch picking parties with fellow Aggie Lovett at Keen's rental house - salad days captured in spirit on the Keen/Lovett co-write, "The Front Porch Song," which both artists would eventually record on their respective debut albums.

While Lovett's self-titled debut was released on major-label Curb Records, Keen took the road less traveled, self-financing and producing 1984's No Kinda Dancer and leasing it to the independent label Rounder Records, which issued it on its Philo imprint. "It was difficult, because I didn't know what I was doing ... I literally opened up the phonebook and looked for studios," Keen recalls. "I basically put it all together through brute force and ignorance, but I was shocked with how well it worked out and very happy with it. We had a release party at Butch Hancock's Dixie Bar and Bustop, and Lyle and Nanci Griffith and a lot of those people who were a part of the Austin folkie scene came out."

Keen himself had already started to make quite a name for himself on that scene, thanks to four years of constant regional gigging and winning the Kerrville Folk Festival's prestigious New Folk songwriting competition in 1983. After his debut's release, he began touring more and more outside of the state lines, eventually moving to Nashville in 1986. Keen's stint in Music City, U.S.A., lasted just under two years, but he returned to Texas armed with a publishing deal, a new label (another indie, Sugar Hill), and a national booking agent. He closed the decade with 1988's The Live Album and the following year's West Textures , the album that marked the debut of "The Road Goes on Forever" and, consequently, kicked his career into high gear.

With hindsight, Keen admits he no idea at the time of writing it that his song about a couple of ill-fated lovers running afoul of the law would have the legs it did, but he readily points to the forward thinking of DJ Steve Coffman of San Antonio radio station KRIO for helping to start the fire. "He talked the station into doing sort of a free-form programing format, basically anything he liked, which turned out to be some Texas music along with a lot of cool sort of pop music," he says. "So all of a sudden, I heard my song back-to-back with the Sheryl Crow song that was popular at the time, and that was the first time that I really felt like I was a real part of the music business, despite having been in it already for a pretty long time. And right after that, I went to a show in San Antonio and there were 1,500 people there - whereas up to that point I'd been playing to, max, maybe 150. That was the real ah-hah moment for me that really got me going and kept me going, because before that I'd been doing this for eight or 10 years and had a lot of rejection but very little success."

After that, though, success came in spades. Although he continued to steer clear of the Garth Brooks-dominated waters of the country mainstream, the perfect storm of Keen's literate song craft, razor wit and killer band (more on that in a bit) stirred up a grassroots sensation in Texas not seen since the '70s heyday of maverick "outlaw country" upstarts Willie, Waylon, Kris Kristopherson and the afore mentioned Guy Clark. Armed with two more albums (1993's A Bigger Piece of Sky and '94's Gringo Honeymoon) brimming with instant classics like "Corpus Christi Bay," "Whenever Kindness Fails," "Gringo Honeymoon," "Dreadful Selfish Crime" and "Merry Christmas From the Family," he began packing dance halls, roadhouses, theaters, and festival grounds with diverse crowds of rowdy college kids, serious singer-songwriter fans and plenty of folks who, like Keen himself, had been around the Texas music scene long enough to remember Willie's earliest 4th of July Picnics. And the phenomenon was not confined to the Texas state lines. Famed producer and pedal steel ace Lloyd Maines (Joe Ely, Terry Allen) helped Keen and his band bottle lighting on 1996's No. 2 Live Dinner, a next-best-thing- to-being-there concert document that remains one of Keen's best-selling albums, and the burgeoning Americana music scene (bolstered by AAA radio stations across the country and magazines like No Depression) embraced Keen as one of its prime

movers. In the wake of albums like 1997's Picnic and '98's Walking Distance (both released on major-label, Arista), one would have been hard-pressed to tell the difference between a rabid Robert Earl Keen crowd at Texas' legendary Gruene Hall and those at New York City joints like Tramps and the Bowery Ballroom. Little wonder, then, that when the songwriter-revering "Americana" style was officially recognized by the industry 1998, Keen was the genre's first artist to be featured on the cover of the radio trade magazine Gavin.

The '90s may have been a boom period for Keen, but his momentum hasn't ebbed a bit since then - nor has his pursuit of continued growth as a writer and artist. If anything, his output from the last decade has been marked by some of the most adventurous music of his career. "Wild Wind," an unforgettable highlight from Gravitational Forces, his Gurf Morlix-produced 2001 debut for the Nashville-based Americana label Lost Highway, captured the character (and characters) of a small Texas town with a cinematic eye reminiscent of The Last Picture Show; but the album's title track also found Keen wryly experimenting with spacey, beatnik jazz. For the freewheelin', freak-flag-flying Farm Fresh Onions (2003, Audium/Koch), Keen and producer Rich Brotherton (his longtime guitarist) took the band into the proverbial garage to knock out their most rocking set of songs to date - most notably the psychedelic rave-up of the title track. Brotherton also produced the more rootsy but equally playful "What I Really Mean" (2005, E1 Music), but Lloyd Maines was back at the helm for 2009's eclectic The Rose Hotel and 2011's spirited Ready for Confetti (both released by Lost Highway). The later was especially well received by fans and critics alike, with AllMusic's Thom Jurek raving, "Ready for Confetti is, without question, Keen's most inspired and focused project in nearly 20 years." Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Sessions, released in 2015, was a straight - ahead "love postcard to bluegrass". This was something Keen had wanted to do for a long time and it was now or never. Keen ranked Billboard's No. 2, 2015 Bluegrass Artist of the year. Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Sessions, charted as 2015's Top 5 album at

Americana Radio and Billboard's 2015 No. 2 album on the Bluegrass Albums chart.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the milestone album No. 2 Live Dinner, Keen returned to the legendary John T. Floore's Country Store in the Texas Hill Country town of Helotes in the fall of 2015 where he recorded his latest project, Live Dinner Reunion, and upped the ante by inviting Joe Ely, Bruce Robison, Cory Morrow, Lyle Lovett and a few other friends and fellow Americana and Texas Music stars to sing along. Some 5,000 fans added their voices to the historic occasion.

The result, the rousing double-disc celebration Live Dinner Reunion, released in late 2016 on Dualtone Records, an Entertainment One company. The repartee of Keen and the other artists, the crowd's response, the songs, and inspired musicianship combine to magically create the album's you-are-there experience. It's these many special musical moments that propel Live Dinner Reunion into the stratosphere of live albums.

This brings Keen’s career to now. In honor of the 25th anniversary of Robert Earl Keen’s iconic album, A Bigger Piece of Sky, Keen and Dualtone re-issued it on vinyl for the first time. Robert Earl Keen's legendary album, A Bigger Piece of Sky , was re- released on November 16, 2019 on sky-blue vinyl.

“A Bigger Piece of Sky was the most thrilling, hair-pulling, penny-pinching, cliff-hanging, scariest record I’ve ever made,” says Keen. “I love every song on BPS.”

A breakthrough album for Keen, A Bigger Piece of Sky and its songs, such as “Amarillo Highway,” “Whenever Kindness Fails,” and “Corpus Christi Bay” are mainstays of his live set. The album was recorded in Nashville, TN, produced by Garry Velletri, and mixed by Velletri and Jeff Coppage. The project features an amazing lineup consisting of Garry Tallent (E Street Band) on upright and electric bass, Marty Stuart on mandolin, Dave Durocher on percussion, Jay Spell on accordion, Jonathan Yudkin on violin, and Maura O’Connell on vocals. It also features guest musicians George Marinelli (Bonnie Raitt) on harmony vocal and electric guitar, Tommy Spurlock on guitar, Michael Snow on tenor banjo, Bryan Duckworth on violin, Dave Heath on upright bass, and Jennifer Prince on harmony vocals.

In the midst of the vinyl re-issue, Keen is as busy as ever touring. Though Keen has played sold-out theater dates with icons such as Willie Nelson, the lion's share of his concert schedule still finds him playing full-tilt with his seasoned road and studio band: Bill Whitbeck on bass, Tom Van Schaik on drums, and Marty Muse on steel guitar, Kym Warner on mandolin and electric guitar and Brian Beken on fiddle, acoustic and electric guitar. "Some of my band members have been with me more than 20 years now," Keen says proudly. "I used to think that was just sort of an interesting fact, but now it's almost a total anomaly - that just doesn't happen much. I always felt like once you lock into the right bunch of people, you try to do the best by them that you can. So, we've been able to stay together a long time, and I think one thing that makes it worthwhile for people to come see us as an act.” Keen’s act and stage presence more than attest to his career’s longevity and its subsequent opportunities.

REK has had the honor of performing with fellow superstars George Strait, Miranda Lambert, Chris Stapleton and Lyle Lovett on the Hand in Hand benefit telethon which raised more than $55 million for hurricane relief efforts in Texas. Keen was featured on a benefit concert hosted by the five former presidents of the United States in 2017. Keen has been involved in many benefits and charity events for communities in his home state of Texas with his main focus being The Hill Country Youth Orchestras in Kerrville. Add that to his legendary status in the lone star state, and it is no wonder REK was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012.

REK’s philanthropic and charity work, along with his legendary music career lead him to be presented with the Distinguished Alumni award from Texas A&M University in the fall of 2018. Awarded jointly by the university and The Association of Former Students, this honor recognizes those Aggies who have achieved excellence in their chosen professions and made meaningful contributions to Texas A&M University and their local communities.

Following the Texas A&M honor, The Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame inducted Robert Earl Keen into their 2019 class. This is the highest honor bestowed on individuals who have shown excellence in competition, business and support of rodeo and the western lifestyle in Texas. The Hall of Fame honored Keen for his prolific music career and charitable acts, presenting him with The Rick Smith “Spirit of Texas Award,” celebrating the achievements and uniqueness of Texans. Keen joins a prestigious list of other Hall of Fame members which includes Willie Nelson, George Strait, Lyle Lovett, Tommy Lee Jones, Red Steagall, Tuff Hedeman, Pat Green, The Gatlin Brothers, and Clay Walker.

The recognition of his legendary career doesn’t stop there. In March 2015, Robert Earl Keen was distinguished as the first recipient of BMI's official Troubadour Award. The Troubadour Award celebrates songwriters who have made a lasting impact on the songwriting community. The award honors writers who craft for the sake of the song and set the pace for generations of songwriters who will follow. To protect songwriters, Keen was a member of the delegation that lobbied US Congress to support musicians' rights, specifically the "Fair Pay for Fair Play Act" which was promoted to the Music Modernization Act that passed in October of 2018. Keen’s career proves him to be a true trailblazer.

Troubadour Robert Earl Keen has made many meaningful contributions in both his surrounding Texas communities and in the music industry nationwide. As more projects and opportunities come down the pike, and as Keen continues to tour extensively with his band, one thing remains the same: Robert Earl Keen loves what he does.

“It’s just like, man, I’m lucky to still be hanging out here and doing this,” he says. “I feel like everything came full circle in a wonderful way.”

Other Shows you may be interested in:

• facebook-rs

Robert Earl Keen Plots Feelin’ Good Again Tour 2021

By Jon Freeman

Jon Freeman

Robert Earl Keen will spend most of the summer headlining his Feelin’ Good Again Tour 2021. The Texas singer-songwriter announced dates for the trek, which was named for a song from his 1998 album Walking Distance .

Most of Keen’s June and July dates will have him touring around the Lone Star State, with stops including Irving, Austin, and Kerrville, before he heads off to Wyoming for a two-night stand in Jackson. Additional dates on the itinerary include the House of Blues in New Orleans, the Lyric in Oxford, Mississippi, and the famed Grizzly Rose in Denver. Keen will also share a trio of dates August 12th to 14th in Kansas and Arkansas with the Avett Brothers .

Tickets for some previously announced shows are already available for purchase . Other dates go on sale June 4th at 10 a.m. local time.

During 2020, Keen was an early adopter of the socially distanced live show model, giving a pair of performances at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas, with capacity limited to less than 150 guests. His latest release is 2016’s Live Dinner Reunion .

Feelin’ Good Again Tour dates:

June 3 – Waco, TX @ The Backyard June 4 – Christoval, TX @ Cooper’s BBQ Live June 5 – Midland, TX @ The Rusty Bucket BBQ and Tavern June 6 – Bertram, TX @ The Globe Theatre June 26 – Irving, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory July 3 – Amarillo, TX @ Starlight Ranch July 4 – Kerrville, TX @ Louise Hays Park July 9 – Austin, TX @ Nutty Brown Café and Amphitheatre July 16 – Belton, TX @ Schoepf’s BBQ July 20 – Jackson, WY @ Center for the Arts July 21 – Jackson, WY @ Center for the Arts July 22 – Helena, MT @ Lewis & Clark Brewery July 23 – Livingston, MT @ Pine Creek Lodge July 24 – Big Sky, MT @ PBR Rodeo July 25 – Bozeman, MT @ Armory Music Hall July 26 – Missoula, MT @ The Wilma July 27 – Billings, MT @ Red Oxx Event Lawn July 29 – Lander, WY @ Chamber Park Stage July 30 – Denver, CO @ Grizzly Rose July 31 – Dillon, CO @ Dillon Amphitheatre Aug 26 – New Orleans, LA @ House of Blues New Orleans Aug 27 – Oxford, MS @ The Lyric Oxford Aug 28 – Montgomery, AL @ The Hog Days of Summer Sept 10 – Frankfort, KY @ Grand Theatre Frankfort Sept 12 – Bloomington, IL @ The Castle Theatre Sept 13 – St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway Sept 14 – St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway Sept 15 – Cincinnati, OH @ Memorial Hall Sept 17 – Decatur, AL @ Princess Theatre Center Sept 18 – Eureka Springs, AR @ The Auditorium Sept 24 – Helotes, TX @ John T. Floore’s Country Store

Shakira Says She 'Lost Money' on Her First World Tour Because of a $1 Million Cobra

• By Tomás Mier

Marcus King Finds Soul Salvation on 'Mood Swings'

• ALBUM REVIEW
• By Jon Dolan

Post Malone Sang About His 'Honky Tonk Blues' With a Hank Williams Cover at Surprise Nashville Show

• Country Covers
• By Larisha Paul

Dua Lipa Continues 'Radical Optimism' Countdown With Teaser for New Single 'Illusion'

• Radical Rollout

Sammy Hagar, Lainey Wilson, and More to Perform Toby Keith Tribute at 2024 CMT Awards

• By Angie Martoccio

Most Popular

Chance perdomo, 'gen v' and 'chilling adventures of sabrina' star, dies at 27, chance perdomo, 'chilling adventures of sabrina' and 'gen v' star, dies at 27, barron trump’s super-rare outing with dad donald may show why we never see them together, partynextdoor reveals nsfw 'partynextdoor 4' album cover, you might also like, faith stowers launching tell-all podcast that will break down ‘vanderpump’ & ‘the valley’ fallout; reveals key role in new randall emmett film (exclusive), tiffany & co. designs trophy for professional women’s hockey league, this best-selling under-desk walking pad is over $100 off on amazon today, ‘legally blonde’ spinoff series in the works from reese witherspoon at amazon, a’s to play in sacramento for three years ahead of vegas move.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

Bolton: Long hitters eager to take on new-look Memorial Park because of one factor

Golfbet News

Change Text Size

Although Memorial Park Golf Course stood tall against the competition in its first three editions as host of the Texas Children’s Houston Open, there’s reason to believe that scoring will be lower this week – all the while a specific skill set could separate contenders from the rest of the field.

From 2020-22, this tournament was contested in November. Because of the season, all turf was Bermudagrass with no overseed. Furthermore, there was a border of one-inch rough flanked by another rising to 2.5 inches. Put it all together and Memorial Park presented its most challenging self.

Now as the host of its first spin in late March, most of the course is overseeded. The only property left alone is the far edges of corridors from tee to green where dormant Bermudagrass will be visible. And the only rough is just 1.25 inches tall.

Rob Bolton | Talk of the TOUR Podcast | Texas Children's Houston Open

There are five par 3s on the par 70 but Memorial Park can stretch to 7,435 yards. It won’t, but you get the idea about its length.

With shorter, overseeded landing areas off tees, the longest hitters can be more aggressive and confidence will rise on approach shots, so long-hitting ball-strikers are salivating more than usual.

So, if you’re a course history buff, the formula for success this week is a zag from your conventional wisdom. Lean into it for your considerations.

Chandler Phillips (+140 = Top 40 via BetMGM Sportsbook) … It’s a hometown stop for the PGA TOUR rookie; well, close enough. He’s from Huntsville, Texas, which is 65 miles due north of Memorial Park.

Since Tom Doak’s redesign in 2019, Phillips has played the course only once, and that was in a scramble in the grand reopening, but that he has any experience at all is a rare plus given just about everything else is new to him this season.

When he met with the media after his practice round on Tuesday, he went into some detail about how the course should play with a different wind (from the south) and in warmer air. But it was a certain reference that should not be overrated.

“I think it's going to blow pretty good, which I'm excitefsd about because I love wind,” he said. “I'm from Texas.”

Chandler Phillips recalls early memories playing against Scottie Scheffler

My take: We can dismiss what a professional athlete says in response to a question a high percentage of the time. When you operate with that mindset as a third party with a motive, the remainder can be gold that sifts through clearly. It’s why I singled out that comment. There are a couple of great things about his perspective.

The other component is that he reiterated what we expect every professional golfer from Texas to say. His confidence is our peace of mind.

Fresh off a career-best T3 at the Valspar Championship, it’s a no-brainer to invest a unit at plus value for this finish. Oh, and the wind should push at times across the last three rounds especially.

Power Rankings wild card

Rafael Campos (+800 = Top 20) … Yeah, I thought that this would get your attention. No, it’s not intended to be provocative, and no, this isn’t the Puerto Rico Open, but he checks too many boxes to merely drop him into tap-ins below.

The 35-year-old from Puerto Rico is making his debut at Memorial Park. What he’ll find and quickly realize is that the layout rewards what he does best. He’s already proven it twice in 2024 with top 20s on similarly long courses in Torrey Pines (T20) and Grand Reserve (T18).

He’s inside the top 20 on the PGA TOUR in total driving, Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, greens in regulation and Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green. He’s also T10 in par-3 scoring, which plays up on five par 3s at Memorial Park.

NOTE: Not everything needs a setup. For a variety of reasons, these lines are too enticing to ignore.

• Parlay: Tom Hoge, Mackenzie Hughes and Stephan Jaeger (+175 = All to Make the Cut) • Sam Bennett (+200 = Top 40) • Cole Hammer (+300 = Top 40) • Jake Knapp (+200 = Top 20) • Martin Laird (+130 = Top Scot) • Victor Perez (+350 = Top 20) • Jhonattan Vegas (+230 = Top 40) • Carson Young (+160 = Top 40)

Returning to competition

Garrick Higgo … After withdrawing during the second round of THE PLAYERS Championship, he had planned to return at last week’s Valspar Championship but pulled the plug before the first round. He’s been wearing tape and a wrap around his left wrist and cited an injured wrist recently, so that’s reason enough to be cautious. At 123rd in the FedExCup and not yet fully exempt for 2025, the lefty will not want to push it unless he’s absolutely certain. Every start he makes this season reduces his potential allotment for a medical extension next year.

Notable WDs

Maverick McNealy … He’d have been a well-owned investment across all gaming formats, what with a 3-for-3 record that includes a pair of top 20s at Memorial Park. He’s also 44th in the FedExCup with two top 10s and a T13 in his last five starts.

Kevin Yu … His tournament debut remains on ice. Currently 60th in the FedExCup and expected to return at next week’s Valero Texas Open.

For resources to overcome a gambling problem, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER today.

Rob Bolton is a Golfbet columnist for the PGA TOUR. The Chicagoland native has been playing fantasy golf since 1994, so he was just waiting for the Internet to catch up with him. Follow Rob Bolton on Twitter .

Küng shares entertaining insight on racing against Van der Poel: "You don't want to do try to copy him"

Due to unfortunate circumstances, Stefan Küng, despite being in top form, didn't make an impact in the Tour of Flanders, one of his major goals this year. However, he's heading to Paris-Roubaix with a lot of confidence, a race that, given the course, might suit him even better. He shared these thoughts with IDLProCycling.com following Flanders' Finest.

On Wednesday, he impressively finished third in Dwars door Vlaanderen, but ended up in forty-first place in the Tour of Flanders. "Indeed, the Tour of Flanders didn't go as I had thought and hoped," the 30-year-old Swiss rider concluded, more than an hour after he crossed the finish line four and a half minutes behind winner Mathieu van der Poel.

"The lead-up to this race went quite smoothly, as did the race itself. I was focused and felt good," describes the Groupama-FDJ powerhouse. "It was quite a scramble on the cobbled climbs, leading to chaos. Yet, I was well-positioned for most of the climbs. However, at a certain point in the pre-final, I was a bit back and got caught in a crash."

Küng keen for revenge in Paris-Roubaix after a disappointing day in Flanders

That was essentially the end of his race. "What exactly happened? I'm not quite sure anymore. It was so sudden. Bam, on the ground. There I was. I think it was Cees Bol who caused the crash, but I'm not certain. I had no chance to avoid it. That was definitely frustrating. The shock was still in my body, but I was able to continue. Yet, I had to start a massive chase, which was virtually impossible. By then, I realized my race was over. I shifted my focus to the next race."

And when he says next race, for a rider of Küng's caliber, he means, of course, the Hell of the North, or Paris-Roubaix. "In Roubaix, I get another chance, one I intend to seize with both hands. In previous races, I've almost always felt very strong. My legs haven't failed me, and I've made very few mistakes. When the action was about to start here in the Tour of Flanders, I was ready for it."

Facing Van der Poel

Küng clearly indicates his determination to get revenge. Last year, he finished fifth in the French cobblestone classic, and this year he aims for at least two places better. "In the Tour of Flanders, I wasn't able to show everything I had in me. But that's cycling, and it's unfortunate. With a good week of rest and recovery, I should be all set for Paris-Roubaix. The course suits me even better than the Tour of Flanders, which is encouraging."

Secretly, Küng - who doesn't! - dreams of achieving the highest possible goal. In his case, it's definitely within the realm of possibility, although he'll need to overcome the top favorite and the world champion in peak form. What's it like to race against Van der Poel, and what can be done to compete with him? Küng described it succinctly. "The main thing is to ensure you don't want to do the same as him. Especially since he's one of the few who can deliver an incredible amount of efforts in succession. A normal person would have to be more calculated in their efforts."

Will Keen on Playing Vladimir Putin in ‘Patriots’ on Broadway: ‘The Sign of a Great Liar Is the Ability to Lie to Oneself’

By Jenelle Riley

Jenelle Riley

Deputy Awards and Features Editor

• Dominic Burgess Talks ‘Palm Royale,’ His Sex Scene With Kim Kardashian on ‘AHS’ and How a Failed ‘iCarly’ Audition Led to His Big Break 1 hour ago
• Ang Lee Talks Bruce Lee Biopic, NYU Tisch School Honor, and Why Making Movies Never Gets Easier: ‘If Anything, It Gets Harder’ 3 days ago
• Billy Magnussen on Why He Embraced Playing the Bad Guy in ‘Road House’ 2 weeks ago

How do  you play someone as notorious as Vladimir Putin ?

It would be easy to telegraph his cruelty, to turn him into a mustache-twirling villain. Or to give over entirely to caricature, without capturing what’s beneath the surface. Will Keen , who embodies the president of Russia in Peter Morgan’s latest play, “ Patriots ,” avoids these pitfalls. Downplaying the complexity and ambiguity of his performance, he says, “Luckily, he doesn’t have a mustache, so that wasn’t a problem.” 

“Patriots” centers on Boris Berezovsky, the oligarch who helped Putin rise to power, only to find his creation not to be the puppet he expected. Keen takes Putin on a journey from seemingly naive protégé to master manipulator — leaving audiences to wonder how much he changed or if he had been hiding his true nature all along. The Broadway production comes with original director Rupert Goold and stars Michael Stulhbarg as Berezovsky — taking over the role from Tom Hollander.

Keen is perhaps best known to U.S. audiences as Father MacPhail in HBO’s “His Dark Materials” (his daughter, Dafne Keen, was the series lead). But he’s a veteran of the stage, having taken roles ranging from Leontes in “The Winter’s Tale” to dual roles  in the world premiere of Tom Stoppard’s “The Coast of Utopia.” Goold first spotted him in a show at the Edinburgh Fringe and championed him for a part in a 1996 production of “The Merchant of Venice” he was assistant directing. It was also Goold who suggested him to Morgan for “Patriots” – though it didn’t hurt that Keen had appeared in Morgan’s series “The Crown” as the Queen’s Private Secretary Michael Adeane.

Indeed, at a glance the likeness between the affable actor and the autocrat isn’t readily apparent — but onstage Keen utterly transforms in mind and body. He mirrors the tight body language and the clipped speech, along with the steely stare that hints at much more behind the mask.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about his physicality,” Keen says, “not just of his body but of his face. His smile, what his mouth is doing and what those eyes are doing.” 

In fact, maybe most intriguing to the actor is the extent to which Putin himself is putting on a performance. “Without giving anything away, I will say that the sign of a great liar is the ability to lie to oneself,” Keen says. “So it doesn’t mean the experience of being that person isn’t real to them. So what the truth is becomes a slightly semantic point. The truth — as lived from within that body and mind — is what it is.”

As for the best insight into Putin’s flexible relationship with fact and fiction? That would be  “First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia’s President,” a 2000 book that was published when Putin was first elected. “Putin himself gave his blessing to it, so it might be considered the one that takes the most largesse with the truth,” Keen says dryly. “But it shows me how he sees himself. It was a different perspective from someone on the outside looking in.”  Goold praises the actor’s commitment to both the physical and mental transformation. “Will has found a brilliant exterior, the cowboy walk, the gangster hands, the small man in big clothes,” he notes. “But he’s also not tried to judge Putin the man, but instead find the truth of Putin the paranoid patriot that Peter has written. Peter’s Putin is driven by a fierce sense of national loss and personal ambition and Will has really unlocked that. As a collaborator he is brilliant on text but also brilliantly playful. He’s a dream to work with!” And, Goold adds, nothing like the character he plays, “Will is genuinely the nicest man in the world so it’s bizarre he’s this brilliant at playing psychopaths!”

For tickets and more information on “Patriots” visit https://patriotsbroadway.com .

More From Our Brands

Shakira says she ‘lost money’ on her first world tour because of a $1 million cobra, this $35 million spanish estate could set a new record for listings in carmel, california, a’s to play in sacramento for three years ahead of vegas move, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, westworld may not be as over as we thought, verify it's you, please log in.