Eric Church

Eric Church

NASHVILLE–Eric Church’’s The Outsiders World Tour will launch in North America on September 11 with 31 arena dates.

Dwight Yoakam was chosen as the special guest for the entire tour. Opening the tour on different dates throughout the first leg will be rising country music duo Brothers Osborne, critically acclaimed singer/songwriter Brandy Clark, or the hard-rocking band Halestorm.

Hailed as a top entertainer by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, SPIN Magazine, and more, Church will bring his rip-roaring attitude when he performs at venues such as Madison Square Garden, Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, the Sprint Center in Kansas City, the Arena at Gwinnett Center in Atlanta, Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, and FedEx Forum in Memphis, among others. Church will also return to the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, N.C. where he sold more than 15,000 tickets in 2012 as part of his headlining arena tour, The Blood, Sweat & Beers Tour—which Pollstar named a Top Tour of 2012.

While The Blood, Sweat & Beers Tour employed a succession of backdrops as the focus of the show, Church’s The Outsiders World Tour will use a much more high tech desig, and will offer fans a 360° view of the entertainer and his band.

Church’’s current album, The Outsiders, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart and the Billboard Country Albums Chart earlier this year, and his current hit single “Give Me Back My Hometown,” is Top 5-and-rising. “

“Eric Church is working on a level that few other country artists of his generation can touch,” said Ken Tucker at NPR Music in his review of the album. “Shrewd, defiant, sly and funny, Eric Church has succeeded in what he set out to do: He’’s using the power he’’s accrued from making hit records to make exactly the kind of album he wants, heedless of industry approval.”

The Outsiders is the follow-up to Church’’s Platinum-certified album Chief, (named the 2012 Album of the Year by both CMA and ACM, and GRAMMY-nominated for Best Country Album) which featured five Top 20 singles: “Homeboy” (certified Platinum for sales in excess of one million singles); the Top 10 “Like Jesus Does” and the Top 5 “Creepin’” (both certified Gold for sales in excess of 500,000 singles each); and two No. 1 hits “Drink in My Hand” (certified Platinum) and “Springsteen” (certified Double Platinum for sales in excess of two million singles).  Church’s debut album, Sinners Like Me (2006) and his sophomore album Carolina (2009) are both RIAA Gold-certified. Carolina had three hit singles:  The Top 10 “Hell on the Heart” as well as Top 20 hit “Smoke A Little Smoke” and Top 10 smash “Love Your Love The Most,” which were both certified Gold.  Sinners Like Me spawned three Top 20 singles: “How ‘Bout You“Two Pink Lines,” and “Guys Like Me

The first leg of the tour will take place throughout Sept.-Dec. in the U.S. and Canada and is exclusively promoted by Louis Messina of The Messina Group/AEG Live. The dates for the first leg of The Outsiders World Tourwith special guest Dwight Yoakum(#TheOutsidersLive) are as follows:

Tickets for the tour, which beings in Bossier City, Louisiana, will go on sale April 18 in select markets with additional information made available on EricChurch.com. Members of the Church Choir will have access to a pre-sale starting on April 15.

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