While live music comes back across America, the reality of COVID-19 still looms large. That includes the southern rock band, Blackberry Smoke. Currently, on their Spirit of the South tour, the band has had to come to a quick halt after a positive COVID test for one band member.
Prior to the Blackberry Smoke playing their tour date in Jacksonville, Florida backup singer Paul Jackson started to come down with COVID-like symptoms. The band, for the health and safety of Jackson and others, got a test immediately for their singer. Unfortunately, the test came back positive. Over on Instagram, the band announced the cancellation of the Jacksonville show officially. At this time the band is weighing its options for future dates.
There are a number of musicians and other performers out on the road. With the Delta variant of COVID-19 raging across the country, the chances of infection are getting higher. Garth Brooks is one performer who has had to think about his tour as a whole. Playing large crowds of tens of thousands doesn’t seem as enticing when the threat of infection looms so large. However, shows are being played and folks, vaccinated and non-vaccinated, are going out to enjoy these shows.
While the band waits for what might happen with Paul Jackson, they also wait to see if any of them have contracted the virus. There are so many people that work on tours like this from crew and production staff to the venue employees. The band will update fans on future dates on the tour while the entire thing is held up.
Blackberry Smoke Tour on Hold
While fans wait to find out about future dates, Blackberry Smoke will have quite the choices to make. Mask mandates are on the comeback and that has many people worried and upset at the prospect of having to go back to those measures. For the band, this is a huge derailment for a tour scheduled to go all the way into next year with a European tour.
Blackberry Smoke recently released their album You Hear Georgia. The album dropped back in May of this year and the band has been out promoting it for most of the year now. With that quintessential southern rock sound, the band keeps putting out solid records year in and out. The album features a song, Lonesome for a Livin’ with Jamey Johnson. Since their debut album in 2004, Bad Luck Ain’t No Crime, the band has been leading their genre subset with great music.
As for the Spirit of the South tour, fans will have to wait a while for the details to come out. There may not be shows for a bit, but the band vows to make it right with refunds or coming back through and honoring the tickets at a makeup show.
