Spafford Map a Spring 2023 Tour With an Ithaca Stop

Spafford have announced a spring 2023 tour spanning March 23 through April 24, concentrated in the eastern half of the United States, with a March 26 date at Deep Dive in Ithaca, New York.

The run opens at The Broadberry in Richmond, Virginia on March 23. Tickets for all of the newly announced shows, with the exception of an April 20 date in Wilmington, North Carolina, go on sale Wednesday, January 25, 2023 at 12 p.m. local time.

A quartet with a new voice on keys

The touring lineup is guitarist Brian Moss, bassist Jordan Fairless, drummer Nick Tkachyk and keyboardist Cory Schechtman, who came aboard at the beginning of 2023 following the departure of longtime keyboardist Andrew “Red” Johnson.

Johnson announced his exit in November after eleven years with the band. “The past 11 years with Spafford have been a dream come true and I wouldn’t trade a single second,” he said at the time, citing a wish to spend more time with his family. He played his last shows with the group in Tempe, Arizona on December 30 and New Year’s Eve.

Schechtman arrives from The New Motif, a Massachusetts jam band formed on Cape Cod in 2017, in which he also plays saxophone. He had already sat in for four Spafford shows in September while Johnson attended to family medical issues at home in Arizona.

A surprise album behind the run

The spring dates follow Simple Mysteries, which Spafford released without warning at midnight on November 1, 2022. The eight-track record is the band’s fourth studio release and its first since the Gaff Tapes EP in 2019.

Fairless engineered the album at the band’s own studio, called The Pound, with mixing by Matt Rifino and mastering by Dave McNair. The band said the sessions ran in phases through the pandemic.

The routing

After Richmond, the itinerary runs through Pittsburgh on March 24 and Harrisburg on March 25 before the Ithaca date, then Huntington, West Virginia on March 29, Covington, Kentucky on March 30 and Chattanooga, Tennessee on March 31.

April opens with an appearance at Atlanta’s Mental Awakening 2023, followed by Fayetteville, Arkansas on April 4, Little Rock on April 5, Baton Rouge, Louisiana on April 6, and Alabama stops in Mobile and Birmingham on April 7 and 8. A Florida swing takes in Jacksonville, Deland, Miami and Stuart between April 12 and 15, with Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia dates closing the trek. Named venues include Victory North in Savannah on April 18, Chelsea’s Live in Baton Rouge and Elevation 27 in Virginia Beach.

Deep Dive’s first booking season

Deep Dive opened in 2022 at 415 Taughannock Boulevard in Ithaca, in the room that previously housed The Dock. It is owned and operated by T.J. Schaper and Jack Clausen, both known in the local music scene as founders of the Ithaca Night Bazaar.

Schaper told The Ithaca Voice that the room has operated as a music venue for 52 years and that he wanted it to catch acts caught between Ithaca’s smaller rooms and the State Theatre. “We have an opportunity to get some artists in that play big rooms in big cities, but in Ithaca they need a space like this,” he said.

Spafford’s own Upstate history includes an Ithaca stop on the band’s 2019 fall tour.

Sources: JamBase, Jambands.com, JamBase, JamBase, The Ithaca Voice.

Photo: Paul Citone, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.