One of country music’s best singers will play the Twin Cities’ worst concert venue in September

After working his way back from a vocal cord injury that sidelined him for three years, cult-loved country music hero Sturgill Simpson will now face a new challenge in his long-awaited Twin Cities comeback show: Roy Wilkins Auditorium.

The richly twangy, Grammy-winning Kentucky singer has scheduled a Sept. 25 date at St. Paul’s notoriously echoey and uncomfortable 92-year-old exhibition hall, which has mostly been hosting high school graduations and RV and camping shows since finally being sidelined as a concert venue a half-decade ago.

Tickets for Sturgill’s concert in St. Paul go on sale via Ticketmaster.com June 14, with presale options beginning June 12. Prices have not yet been publicized. The show is being billed as an “evening with” performance, meaning there will be a lengthy headlining set and no opening act.

Simpson, 45, will hit the road again with a new album to promote, “Passage Du Desir,” which he is purportedly releasing under a new stage name, Johnny Blue Skies. Maybe he can get Chris Gaines to open some of the shows?

There’s an easy explanation for why Simpson’s tour — billed as the Why Not? Tour — is stopping at Wilkins Auditorium: The comparably sized Armory across town in Minneapolis is already booked that night with another performer, Gracie Abrams. Simpson was supposed to play the Armory in 2020 when his tour plans were canceled due to the pandemic, and then later due to his vocal issues. He has not performed in the Twin Cities since a 2016 date at First Avenue.

Twin Cities music lovers on social media gave tour promoter AEG Presents plenty of reasons why not to have booked the tour into Wilkins Auditorium.

“Please not Roy Wilkins,” Brock Peterson posted to X (previously known as Twitter).

“Honestly, Myth would have been better for his fanbase,” concert-scene fixture Kyle Matteson also posted, referring to the strip-mall megaclub in Maplewood.

Some fans said they will probably skip the Wilkins show and instead trek 3½ hours to Moorhead, where Simpson is scheduled to perform a night earlier at the scenic Bluestem Amphitheater.

The last major ticketed concert booked at Wilkins Auditorium was the boy band Why Don’t We in 2022, which was canceled. Before that, the venue’s last string of big shows included Lake Street Dive, Bruce Hornsby and LCD Soundsystem in 2017, the year before Minneapolis’ Armory reopened as a refurbished concert hub.