Darius Rucker just made a big announcement about his band's return

By Jaimie-lee Prince

Dec 04, 2018

03:55 P.M.

Darius Rucker has shaken up his fandom by announcing not only a reunion but also an upcoming tour of his band.

The 52-year-old country singer posted a flyer to Instagram with the big news. Hootie and the Blowfish will be giving a tour with Bare Naked Ladies as special guests. The exciting post is found below.

The tour is entitled "Group Therapy." The band's group consists of Mark Bryan, guitarist, Jim "Soni" Sonefield, drummer, Dean Felber, bassist, and of course Rucker, the lead singer.

The rock, R&B, and country music singer captioned the post:

"Excited to announce... @hootieofficial is heading out on the road in 2019! And we're bringing @barenakedladiesmusic with us! Man, this is gonna be awesome."

He added:

"For first access to the pre-sale happening right NOW, sign up for the newsletter at hootie.com."

Rucker had split from the band in 2008 so as to pursue a country music solo career. He went on to grab eight Number One singles. In 2013, he won a Grammy award for Best Country Solo Performance for "Wagon Wheel."

Prior to that, the band was a huge success, selling over 21 million copies of their albums. After the breakup, they played together on and off mostly for charity concerts.

In a 2013 interview with CNN, Rucker revealed that he didn't consider himself a "Hootie." He said: "when I named the band I guess I didn’t think that people would think I was Hootie.” But his claims are now unfounded.

Source: YouTube/ CNN

This will be the band's first long-standing tour in over a decade, and the first new album in almost 15 years. Tickets will be sold starting from December 7. Pre-sales have already begun.

The band is set to visit 44 North American cities starting on May 30. The first location wil be in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Other sites will include Madison Square Garden in New York City, Los Angeles' Hollywood Bowl, and the Budweiser Stage in Toronto.

They will wrap up in their hometown of Columbia, South Carolina on September 13. Rucker himself grew up in Charleston, South Carolina.

Raised by only his mother, the Grand Ole Opry singer has two brothers and three sisters. He was the one who started the Hootie band in the late Eighties.

Source: YouTube/ Brazilian Musics

As part of his solo career, Rucker performed alongside Adele in 2010 during the CMT awards. The two sang Lady Antebellum's hit song "Need You Now."

Their performance meshed well and was so moving that it drew lead Antebellum's singer, Hilary Scott to tears. We imagine that fans of Hootie's may also be in tears after hearing of the long-awaited return of the band.