Blake Shelton is gearing up for his Friends And Heroes Tour 2021 with special guests Trace Adkins, Tracy Byrd, Martina McBride and Lindsay Ell. Although he's done a few makeup dates that were canceled last year, the trek really gets started tomorrow (Thursday, September 2nd) in Philadelphia.
During last month's taping of the ABC special, CMA Summer Jam, Blake revealed that he's feeling a little “rusty” after being off the road for so long due to the pandemic. “Being back on the road again is exciting for me. It's a little bit scary, too. I'm gonna be honest, I haven't been sitting around really rehearsing my songs for the last year and a half so I've pretty much forgotten a lot of them (laughs) and so I've got a lot of work to do. We've actually done a couple little rehearsals and we have done a festival or two but the tour is a different show completely and so I'm gonna be a little rusty. I'm looking forward to some rehearsal days before we actually do the tour with the Friends And Heroes.”
CMA Summer Jam airs tomorrow night at 8 p.m. ET. The three-hour concert special features four performances from Blake — including a duet with his new wife, Gwen Stefani — as well as Jimmie Allen, Gabby Barrett, Dierks Bentley, Breland, Brothers Osborne, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Luke Combs, Florida Georgia Line, Mickey Guyton, Hardy, Miranda Lambert, Carly Pearce, Thomas Rhett, Darius Rucker, Cole Swindell, Carrie Underwood, Lainey Wilson and Dwight Yoakam.
CMA Summer Jam was filmed in late July at Nashville’s open-air Ascend Amphitheater.