With just one two-part concert announcement Tuesday, the Minnesota State Fair managed to fill this year's quotient for power ballads and rock singers with big hair.
Seventies roller-rink dream team REO Speedwagon and Styx will once again pair up at the fair's grandstand on Thursday, Sept. 1, preceded by '90s coffeehouse favorites Counting Crows with the Wallflowers on Friday, Aug. 26.
Tickets for both shows go on sale Friday via eTix.com or 800-514-3849, with Crows tickets available starting at 11 a.m. for $34-$51 and REO/Styx seats starting at noon for $41-$51.
Seen together before at the grandstand, including in 2009 and 2001, Styx and the Speedwagon are billing their post-lockdown co-headlining outing the Live & UnZoomed Tour. REO is still led by singer Kevin Cronin and founding keyboardist Neal Doughty, while Styx lost its operatic singer Dennis DeYoung decades ago but carries on under guitarist, songwriter and co-vocalist Tommy Shaw.
Adam Duritz and Counting Crows are calling their 2022 trek the Butter Miracle Tour after last year's album of the same name. The Wallflowers also put out a record in 2021, "Exit Wounds," and have a Minnesota-connected frontman in Jakob Dylan, who perhaps attended the State Fair as a kid when he spent summers at his dad Bob's farm on the Crow River.
The Wallflowers were supposed to perform at Treasure Island Casino Amphitheater last year with Matchbox Twenty, but that show got postponed to 2023 without Dylan's crew on the lineup.
Here's where these two concerts fit in with the rest of the fair's grandstand concert lineup so far announced:
- Thursday, Aug. 25: Alice in Chains, Breaking Benjamin & Bush
- Friday, Aug. 26: Counting Crows and the Wallflowers
- Sunday, Aug. 28: Pitbull and Iggy Azalea
- Tuesday, Aug. 30: Jim Gaffigan
- Thursday, Sept. 1: REO Speedwagon and Styx
- Friday, Sept. 2: Zac Brown Band & Robert Randolph Band
- Saturday, Sept. 3: Diana Ross with Naturally 7
