Lenny Kravitz Tour

Lenny Kravitz Announces Let Love Rule Club 2012 Tour:
To mark the 20th anniversary of his breakthrough 1989 debut, Let Love Rule, Lenny Kravitz will launch a US club Lenny Kravitz Tour in 2012 beginning with four shows at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza.
The album is also getting the reissue treatment courtesy of EMI, with an expanded double-disc set that includes a remastered version of the original album, plus 18 bonus tracks, including 13 previously unreleased demos, B-sides and live recordings.
While on the road to support his most recent studio release, "It Is Time for a Love Revolution," Kravitz has had to cancel several dates due to complications from a severe respiratory-tract infection. Here’s hoping he stays healthy long enough to remind fans of the greatness of early classics like “Mr. Cab Driver” and
Following the club tour, Kravitz will make a stop at the Voodoo Music Experience in New Orleans on Nov. 1, where he will share the stage with the likes of Eminem, KISS, Jane's Addiction, Wolfmother and the Black Keys.
The club tour dates can always be found here. ...Source...

Lenny Kravitz announces U.S. tour :
Lenny Kravitz is bringing his Let Love Rule 2012 tour to the U.S., beginning October 11th with a batch of shows at New York City's Irving Plaza. According to Billboard.com, The outing, dubbed LLR 20 (09) will wind down with Kravitz's headlining gig at the Voodoo Experience festival in New Orleans. Kravitz has had a busy year, markign the 20th anniversary of his debut album with a big European tour, which stopped in 54 cities. He also released a new edition of his 1989 debut, Let Love Rule, including unreleased demos, B-sides and live recordings.

Looking back on his career, Kravitz tells us how lucky he feels to have made it: "The thing that I've enjoyed about my career is that it's been a gradual climb. And I think that's part of the reason why I've had longevity. I think it'd be a real nightmare to put a record out and sell 20 million copies and then after that, that's it. I'm in this for the long haul. I've been making music my whole life and I'm gonna continue making it. So the rate of success has been really good. It's worked out well." ...Source...

Lenny Kravitz Announces "Let Love Rule" U.S. Tour Dates :
Lenny Kravitz will continue to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his "Let Love Rule" album with a U.S. tour, the singer announced today.
Dubbed "LLR 20 (09)", the road trip kicks off Oct. 11 with a five-night stand at New York's Irving Plaza and concludes with Kravitz's headlining gig at the Voodoo Experience festival in New Orleans, La.
In May, Kravitz began marking the anniversary of his debut album with an extensive European tour, visiting 54 cities and 17 countries along the way.
The tour trek coincided with an expanded reissue of "Let Love Rule," including unreleased demos, B-sides and live recordings.
The album has sold 791,000 copies since its 1989 release, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
As reported last week, Kravitz will join previously announced headliners KISS, Eminem, Jane's Addiction and Widespread Panic at the Voodoo Experience festival.
The full tour date schedule for the Lenny Kravitz concert tour can be found here. ...Source...

Lenny Kravitz Announces US Tour to Commemorate 20th Anniversary of 'Let Love Rule' :
Lenny Kravitz, one of the preeminent rock musicians of our time, has announced he will be kicking off an exclusive run of intimate shows in the US to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his classic debut release Let Love Rule. The 15-city tour will culminate in Kravitz headlining the Voodoo Experience Festival in New Orleans, LA on November 1st. The writer, producer and multi-instrumentalist’s tour is bound to captivate audiences with his signature style - music carrying echoes of past eras, combining classic rock, old-school soul, gritty funk and confectionary '60s pop, yet always boasting an urgency and craftsmanship reflective of modern times. With close to 40 million records sold worldwide, Kravitz’s exclusive US tour will include material from throughout his over 20 year career.

20 years ago, Lenny Kravitz wrote, recorded and produced his iconic debut album, Let Love Rule, striking a chord around the world and propelling him to international stardom. The title song’s signature line, “It’s time to take a stand, Brothers and Sisters join hands” is a theme Kravitz feels is still relevant to this day, and he is harnessing this message of hope, taking it on tour with him.

To commemorate the 20th Anniversary of his incendiary, critically acclaimed 1989 debut, Let Love Rule, Kravitz and Virgin/EMI collaborated to create an expanded 2 CD and digital reissue featuring a newly remastered original album, plus 18 bonus tracks, including 13 previously unreleased demos, rare B-sides, and live recordings. The special set was released in May of 2009. In support of the release, Kravitz launched his “LLR 20 (09) Tour,” a massive 54 city tour of Europe. Along the way, the tour hit 17 countries across the continent. ... Source ...

Lenny Kravitz Short Biography :
Lenny Kravitz is a fanatic, an obsessive student of all things classic rock, soul, funk, and psychedelic. He is the peace-and-love candidate for superstardom, the black hippie Jew with tattoos and dreads and an in-satiable jones for Jimi, Sly, and the Beatles. That is how Kravitz first emerged at the end of the ’80s, oblivious to hair metal and gangsta, embracing the feel-good soundtrack of his childhood with naïveté and feeling, not merely nostalgia for the Age of Aquarius. And he’s faced criticism ever since for appropriating only the finest sounds of the period and for dressing the part in epic rock-star threads, all bell-bottoms and feather boas. He is not groundbreaking. But his early albums at least sound in retrospect like a man tapping genuine emotion, using ancient pop styles as a setting for revealing messages on love and faith that rarely sound secondhand. As later recordings drift into a sound more identifiably his own, the result has mostly been slick, manufactured, and cold. The paradox of Lenny Kravitz is that his most derivative music is also his most personal.

On Let Love Rule, he plays virtually everything himself (guitars, bass, organ, drums, etc.). The sound is raw and largely acoustic, just beats, bass lines, and Hammond B-3’s, like a collision of Sly Stone and solo Lennon. As a lyricist, he’s best served when focused on the personal, and much less so as a rock & roll messiah. He is a flower child in a computer age, singing praises for his wife and daughter (“I Build This Garden for Us”) and fighting curbside racism on the anxious “Mr. Cab Driver.” Mama Said is already a step up in sophistication. “Fields of Joy” opens with light and loving acoustic guitar as Kravitz sings at his most falsetto. He is less of a one-man band, even as he expands his chops as a writer, arranger, and ringmaster. The sticky funk of “Always on the Run” mingles horns with Slash doing Joe Perry on guitar, and Kravitz sheds real tears of commitment and regret on the soulful “Stand by My Woman” and amid breezy Al Green strings of “It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over.” Are You Gonna Go My Way introduces new permanent sideman Craig Ross on lead guitar, unleashing his inner Jimmy Page in time for the Zep textures and Sly Stone preaching (“Being free is a state of mind!”) of “Believe.” As always, Kravitz is careful not to sound any slicker than Stevie Wonder circa 1972, even using vintage tape in the studio. The goal isn’t lo-fi but high concept, as if the limitation of period technology is as crucial an instrument as his guitar. But the songwriting is slipping on Circus, even as he cranks up the guitars and declares that “Rock and Roll Is Dead,” making a point that isn’t exactly clear (“You can’t even sing or play an instrument/So you just scream instead”).

With 5, Kravitz seems to surrender to his critics and resorts to digital technology and computerized sounds, straying deep into other styles, announcing that he’s “getting straight in ’98, y’all!” But he’s no Bowie chameleon. “Black Velveteeen” sounds like a Depeche Mode outtake circa 1988, with cheeseball effects and beats. Kravitz is still a decade behind. He can sometimes hook into a moment of real emotion, but that’s less and less often, as if without his core influences, he’s lost. The silky soul of “I Belong to You” is as moving and elegant as anything he’s done, with a bit of romantic desperation in his voice. A ham-fisted remake of the Guess Who’s “American Woman” was a crossover hit, but 5 is his most forgettable album. Lenny is a slight improvement, while admitting on “Stillness of Heart” that “the things that were so sweet no longer move my feet/But I keep trying.” He goes metal sludge on “Battlefield of Love,” as the true funk finally slips away. Baptism is where Kravitz finally comes up with a modern sound that reflects his obsession with the rock & roll past without sounding stuck there. Lyrics remain dubious and overblown (“I am a minister of rock & roll/I can heal you, I can save your soul!”) whenever he steps away from issues romantic or personal. And yet it is his best album in a decade, riffing easily like a Kiss wanna-be amid pop and handclaps on “California” and the glam funk of “Lady.” The agitated “I Don’t Want to Be a Star” rocks harder even as he denies his own fabulous lifestyle of limos, furs, and anonymous fashion models: “Just want my Chevy and an old guitar.” Right. But this time, the illusion sticks. Kravitz finally sounds like no one but himself. (STEVE APPLEFORD)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide

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