The long and strange saga of Ryan Adams' many visits to the Twin Cities is about to get longer and probably stranger.
The onetime Americana music golden boy has booked an Oct. 21 date at the State Theatre in Minneapolis as part of an eight-city fall tour. It will be Adams' first time performing in town since the New York Times ran an investigative story in February 2019 detailing his many years of sexually predatory and harassing behavior to women and girls.
Tickets for the Friday night show — priced $64 and up — go on sale this Friday at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster, whose corporate partner Live Nation is the promoter behind the concert.
Adams always worked with First Avenue Productions for his Twin Cities dates before his fall from grace, but not this time. First Ave had seen him through several great and several truly troubled shows over two decades, including a 2007 State Theatre gig where he kept moving stage monitors and left in a huff after 70 minutes. A December 2003 show in the Mainroom saw him drunkenly rail against local music hero Paul Westerberg and eventually cry, saying, "I just go home for Christmas."
Now reportedly sober, Adams, 47, has been steadily trying to work up a comeback after his career came to a standstill following the Times story. The famously prolific singer/songwriter has self-released four albums over the past three years. He also already played his first public performance last month at Carnegie Hall (reportedly a solid three-hour performance), and he's due at Los Angeles' Orpheum Theatre next week.
Among the women who accused Adams of emotionally abusive and/or sexually harassing behavior in the Times article were fellow indie music star Phoebe Bridgers, his ex-wife Mandy Moore and another musician who was underage at the time but told Adams she was 18. Bridgers was 20 and Adams was 40 when she said they had a relationship that turned harmful and "obsessive."
While he initially denied most of the allegations, Adams penned a lengthy, groveling apology published by the Daily Mail in 2020 in which he admitted, "I've mistreated people throughout my life and career."
"To a lot of people this will just seem like the same empty bull***t apology that I've always used when I was called out, and all I can say is, this time it is different," he wrote.
