Bret Michaels Recruits Snider, Gramm and Felder for 2024 Tour

After having nothin’ however a very good time final summer time, Bret Michaels might be again this 12 months with Parti-Gras 2.0, a five-act bundle that kicks off July 12 in Noblesville, Indiana, and performs six dates throughout July and August.

Joining the Poison frontman and solo artist this summer time might be former Foreigner frontman (and current Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee) Lou Gramm, ex-Eagles guitarist Don Felder and Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider, together with nation singer Chris Janson, who Michaels joined for an episode of CMT Crossroads in December.

“We had such a great experience last year,” Michaels tells UCR. “What I think makes it come together, besides the friendship and the chemistry of the [performers], is just the music, the timeless classic hits and a lot of energy. It’s hit songs. People feel like they’re having a great time. They’re singing. There’s no bathroom breaks. It’s just a great night from start to finish.”

Michaels even has a reasonably clear concept of how the reveals will run. “You got Don Felder opening up the whole evening with nothing but Eagles hits – ‘Hotel California,’ ‘Life in the Fast Lane.’ And then Dee Snider comes on stage with his hits and joins and Lou Gramm singing all the great Foreigner stuff — I can’t even count the amount of hits — and then Chris and eventually by the end of the night we pick out some songs we can all do together and make it, again as I said last year, a celebration of all the fans, the bands, the music — everybody in the building.”

READ MORE: When Poison’s New Guitarist Gave Them Their Last Hit, ‘Stand’

Unlike final 12 months’s Parti-Gras, which included Night Ranger, Jefferson Starship, Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath and onetime Journey singer Steve Augeri, this 12 months’s version will nod to Michaels’ dalliances with nation music by that includes Janson, who Michaels considers a type of kindred spirit and “a truly great friend.”

“When we got to meet up and hang out before we started filming [Crossroads], he told me the first song he and his band learned to play was [Poison’s] ‘Talk Dirty to Me.’ I said, ‘Well, we gotta do that, and you need to sing it.’ And ‘Buy Me a Boat’ is one of his songs that’s on my Parti-Gras mixtape. So we formed an amazingly awesome friendship.” CMT might be re-airing Crossroads a number of instances through the subsequent week, beginning at 8 p.m. EST on Feb. 13.

Michaels additionally has a powerful relationship with Snider, with whom he shares a birthday (March 15, eight years aside), and he phrases Gramm “an inspiration” and affect from his earliest days as a music fan. “As you see with Bret Michaels and Friends…I’ve made friends, I’m gonna say this, 99.9 percent of the time. Maybe once in awhile you meet someone and that chemistry just doesn’t gel, but it’s seldom and I don’t even remember at this point. Most of the people I get along with and have a great time.”

Michaels says different components of Parti-Gras will stay in place, such because the social gathering beads and bandanas distributed to parti-goers, and having contest winners benefit from the present from an on-stage Tiki hut. He additionally revealed one other aspect that helps create the right spirit on the reveals. “I got down to make it smell good,” Michael explains, “I mean literally making sure our hazers had coconut rum so you felt like you were on the island. People were like, ‘It smells good up here!’ Yeah, dumping a little coconut rum into the hazers, it just smells good. It smells like you’re hanging out in Florida or one of the Caribbean islands.”

Hit After Hit

But whereas Michaels launched a brand new single and video, the nostalgic “Back in the Day,” earlier than final 12 months’s Parti-Gras he is not planning something comparable this time. “When people come to Parti-Gras we keep telling them ‘all hits, no filler,’ and we’re just trying to fire out hit after hit so the fans can have a great night,” Michaels says.

He’s planning different particular person Parti-Gras reveals throughout the remainder of the 12 months, and Michaels can be waiting for 2025, when Poison is plotting one other reunion to observe up its jaunt on the 2022 Stadium Tour with Def Leppard, Motley Crue and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. “I think it’s gonna be great,” Michaels predicts. “I think everyone will be unbelievably excited, like we were when we did the Stadium Tour. It’s about every two or three years and we get together and just have a great time. We really look forward to being together now.”

Tickets for Parti-Gras 2.0 go on sale at 10 a.m. EST on Feb. 16, with pre-sale alternatives and VIP packages accessible by way of BretMichaels.com. The full 2024 itinerary may be discovered under.

Parti-Gras 2.0 2024 Show Dates
July 12 – Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Music Center
July 13 – Burgettstown, PA @ Pavillion at Star Lake
August 3 – Atlanta, GA @ Ameris Amphitheatre
August 23 – Detroit, MI @ Pine Knob
August 30 – Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center
August 31 – Gilford, NH @ Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion