Credit: Jeremy DangerAfter playing a warmup club gig Sunday in New York City, Roadcase Royale — Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson‘s new group with former Prince backing singer Liv Warfield — kicks off a series of dates opening for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band tonight in Rochester, New York. Nancy says she and the band are eager to hit the road on this, their first-ever tour, both with Seger and as headliners.
“We’re very excited. I mean, we’re just really raring to go,” Wilson tells ABC Radio about the trek, which runs through a November 11 show. “It’ll be really fun to be able to play longer sets with our headlining stuff, and then, like, 45 minutes for Bob Seger.”
While on tour, Roadcase Royale will release its debut album, First Things First, on September 22. The band combines hard-driving, Heart-style rock with Warfield’s powerful soul-drenched vocals. Nancy says her group and Seger will be “quite a match.”
“I mean, because Bob Seger has a lot of bluesy, soulful [elements] in his voice,” Wilson maintains, “and his writing is just iconic.”
Nancy says she realizes that during Roadcase Royale’s opening dates, the venues likely won’t be full when the group first hits the stage, so they plan to save some of their more crowd-pleasing tunes for the latter part of their sets.
“[By the time] our little 45 minutes is up, hopefully there’s gonna be a lot more [people in their seats,]” she maintains. “We’re trying to craft our set so that there’s more familiar kind of Heart songs closer to the end of the set, where more people are gonna go, ‘Hey, there’s a Heart song! Let’s go check it out.'”
Here are Roadcase Royale’s upcoming shows; all dates opening for Seger unless otherwise noted:
9/12 — Rochester, NY, Blue Cross Arena
9/14 — Boston, MA, TD Garden
9/16 — Uncasville, CT, Mohegan Sun
9/19 — Grand Rapids, MI, Van Andel Arena
9/21 — Cincinnati, OH, U.S. Bank Arena
9/23 — Auburn Hills, MI, Palace of Auburn Hills
9/24 — Milwaukee, WI, The Pabst Theater*
9/26 — State College, PA, The State Theatre
9/28 — Pittsburgh, PA, PPG Paints Arena
9/30 — Columbus, OH, Nationwide Areana
10/1 — Charlotte, NC, Neighborhood Theatre*
10/4 — Knoxville, TN, Bijou Theatre*
10/5 — Greenville, SC, Bon Secours Wellness Arena
10/7 — Duluth, GA, Infinite Energy Arena
10/8 — Nashville, TN, City Winery*
10/10 — Des Moines, IA, Wells Fargo Arena
10/12 — St. Louis, MO, Scottrade Center
10/14 — Kansas City, MO, Sprint Center
10/15 — Oklahoma City, OK, Tower Theatre*
10/17 — New Orleans, LA, Joy Theatre*
10/19 — The Woodlands, TX, The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
10/21 — Frisco, TX, The Ford Center at The Star
10/24 — Austin, TX, Frank Erwin Center
10/26 — Denver, CO, Pepsi Center
10/28 — Phoenix, AZ, Talking Stick Resort Arena
11/2 — Oakland, CA, Oracle Arena
11/4 — Inglewood, CA, The Forum
11/7 — Boise, ID, Ford Center
11/9 — Portland, OR, Moda Center
11/11 — Seattle, WA, KeyArena
* = headlining date.
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