The Kool & The Gang-Kid Rock pairing follows on the heels of their wildly-successful 50-plus city tour in 2012 with Van Halen . Billboard reported: "One unqualified success was the experiment of Kool & The Gang's opening set. If some — actually many — wondered how the R&B group would fare in front of Van Halen 's hard rock crowd, doubts were dispelled quickly with the breezy lite funk of the 11-piece outfit's 50-minute set, which had the T-shirted, beer-drinking, fist-pumpers dancing exuberantly." Kool & The Gang also plan on joining the Dave Matthews Band in Hershey, PA, July 13 at Hershey Park Stadium.
Unique pairings for Kool & The Gang don't exist only on stage; their bulletproof funk and jazzy arrangements have also made them the most sampled band of all time. With the explosion of hip-hop in the '90s, Kool & The Gang's incredible catalog of grooves has made them DJ favorites, and they are second only to R&B icon James Brown as sources of rap-music samples. The Hits Reloaded album found the band collaborating with such acolytes as Lil' Kim, Sean Paul , Ashanti, and Blackstreet, among others.
Selling over 70 million albums worldwide the band influenced the music of three generations. Thanks to songs like Celebration, Cherish, Summer Madness and Open Sesame, Kool & The Gang has earned two Grammy® Awards and seven American Music Awards and amassed 25 Top Ten R&B hits, nine Top Ten Pop hits and 31 gold and platinum albums. They have performed continuously longer than any R&B group in history.
"We are not over yet, we have other things we want to do—when my legs won't run to those airports anymore then I might give up," says band co-founder Ronald Khalis Bell .
As the purveyors of such booty-rocking standards as Jungle Boogie and Hollywood Swinging, the gang never fails to flex their funk – on both old-school workouts and hip-hop jams. Their music has been created by the same core of players for over four decades: Robert "Kool" Bell, his brother Ronald Khalis Bell , their longtime friends Dennis "DT" Thomas and George "Funky" Brown. Other band members include, Clifford Adams , Lavelle Evans , Larry Gittens , Timothy Horton , Shawn McQuiller , Michael Ray and Curtis "Fitz" Williams.
TOUR DATES
Friday, June 28 - Bristow, VA - Jiffy Lube Live
Saturday, June 29 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center
Tuesday, July 2 - Cleveland, OH - Blossom Music Center
Friday, July 5 - Darien, NY - Darien Lake Performing Arts Center
Saturday, July 6 - Scranton, PA - Toyota Pavilion At Montage Mountain
Tuesday, July 9 - Camden, NJ - Susquehanna Bank Center
Wednesday, July 10 - Mansfield, MA - Comcast Center
Saturday, July 13 - Hershey, PA - Hershey Park Stadium (Dave Matthews Band)
Tuesday, July 23 - Albuquerque, NM - Isleta Amphitheater
Wednesday, July 24 - Phoenix, AZ - Desert Sky Pavilion
Friday, July 26 - Irvine, CA - Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
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