After an eight-year absence, critically acclaimed, 4x GRAMMY® winners Alabama Shakes return, announcing summer tour dates and promising fans that new songs are also on the way. Kicking off July 16 in Chicago at The Salt Shed-Fairgrounds, the North American headline run will include a show at Meadow Brook Amphitheatre with special guest Sam Evian on Friday, September 5, 2025 at 8 p.m. Oakland University Credit Union is the exclusive presenting partner of Meadow Brook Amphitheatre.
“Last year, Heath, Zac, and I started chatting about how much fun it would be to make music together and tour again as Alabama Shakes,” said vocalist/guitarist Brittany Howard, whose new solo album, WHAT NOW (Island Records), was nominated this year for a Grammy® Award for Best Alternative Music Album. “This band and these songs have been such a source of joy for all of us. It is crazy that it has been 10 years since we released Sound and Color and eight years since we played a show. But, we didn’t want this to entirely be a look back. We wanted it to be as much about the future as the past. So we have a bunch of new music that will be released soon. We just can’t wait to experience that ‘feeling’ when we start playing those first few notes of ‘Don’t Wanna Fight’ or ‘Gimme All Your Love.’”
The tour will mark Alabama Shakes’ first official live performances since their 2017 set at Osheaga Music and Arts Festival in Québec, which Montreal’s The Gazette praised as “mesmerizing, intoxicating and entirely authentic.” Howard and Alabama Shakes’ Heath Fogg (guitar) and Zac Cockrell (bass) have been in the studio, working on new material with longtime collaborator Shawn Everett.
Alabama Shakes exploded out of obscurity in 2012 with Boys & Girls, (ATO Records), which entered Billboard’s Independent Albums chart at No.1. Boys & Girls earned the band multiple GRAMMY nominations and was hailed as one of the year’s best albums by numerous publications, including Rolling Stone, which also named lead single “Hold On” the #1 Best Song of 2012. Soon after its release, the bandmates found themselves thrust into the global spotlight, achieving such milestones as performing at the White House and on “Saturday Night Live.”
The band’s legacy continued to grow with the groundbreaking Sound & Color (ATO Records). Released 10 years ago, the album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and won GRAMMY® Awards for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. The first single, “Don’t Wanna Fight,” took honors in the Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song categories. Sound & Color marked a profound evolution from Alabama Shakes’ debut album, as The New York Times Magazine observed, heralding the band’s “soul-stirring, shape-shifting new sound.” Both Sound & Color and Boys & Girls were certified Platinum by the RIAA.
After touring behind Sound & Color, Howard made her solo debut with the highly personal album Jaime – named for her sister, who taught her to play piano and write poetry, and who died of cancer when they were still teenagers. Jaime was nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Alternative Music Album, and three tracks from the album received nominations, with “Stay High” winning in the Best Rock Song category. WHAT NOW followed in 2024. The GRAMMY-nominated album found its place on multiple Best Albums of 2024 lists, including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, The Guardian, Pitchfork, TIME, and many more.
Cockrell played on both Jaime and WHAT NOW and joined Howard on tour to support the albums. After helming the self-titled debut album of his collaborative project Sun on Shade in 2020, Fogg produced, co-wrote and performed on Lake Nakoma, his project with Colin Woltmann. He has also toured and recorded with Caleb Elliott.
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