Michael Franti & Spearhead
Togetherness Tour: With special guests Citizen Cope and Bombargo
Michael Franti & Spearhead announce additional dates of their Togetherness Tour to include a performance at Sacramento’s new venue, The Backyard, Friday, August 23, with special guests Citizen Cope and Bombargo. Tickets are available via Ticketmaster, Friday, March 29, at 10AM.
The tour takes the group across the U.S., including stops at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Tortuga Music Festival and a return to Red Rocks Amphitheatre. The tour will include special guests Stephen Marley, Trevor Hall, Citizen Cope and Trombone Shorty, as well as Niko Moon, Bombargo and Ripe, on select dates.
Franti & Spearhead’s latest album Big Big Love, dubbed by American Songwriter as “an energizing batch of songs that spotlight the common threads that connect us,” features 17 tracks all cowritten by Franti, with the tour’s name derived from the record’s most important takeaway - TOGETHERNESS.
“Togetherness is the central theme in all the songs on our latest record Big Big Love,” shares Franti. “How do we get that feeling of togetherness, that feeling of closeness, that we so often overlooked and took for granted, but now has become so important? Not only just in terms of how we interact with each other in our neighborhoods or our personal relationships, but on a worldwide scale. How do we bridge these gaps so that people can feel close to one another again?
“There are forces in the world that use our division to achieve their greedy goals, their political aims, or just to divide people because they want to try to take advantage of it,” he elaborates. “I want to really use my music and my time in my life to bring closeness to people and help them feel like they’re not alone in this world.”
Franti & Spearhead’s latest single “Hands Up To The Sky,” which is quickly climbing AAA charts, became a fan-favorite during live shows on last year’s Big Big Love Tour, as the uplifting track permits listeners to make space in their minds and hearts by letting go of emotions and allow room for the joy that follows once on the other side.
“Writing ‘Hands Up’ was an important part of my healing journey and putting together the video was cathartic,” reveals Franti. “I lost my father to COVID and after several months of grieving, I saw live music again for the first time – a Balinese band called The Munchies. At one point, I closed my eyes and put my hands up to the sky. My whole body started trembling, tears started coming down my cheeks, and I was laughing and crying and dancing and singing and shouting and just feeling everything over the previous few years rise up and out.
“I needed the music to help me open all the parts of my soul that were blocked due to just trying to figure out how to get through life each day. It was a reminder to me of how important music is, as it also brought that feeling of togetherness that I missed so much during the pandemic. That feeling of just being around other people watching a band play and experiencing that together.”