Joe Bonamassa has spent a quarter-century making the case that the blues, played loud and played right, still belongs in amphitheaters. On Friday, June 26 he brings that conviction to Bethel Woods to launch his Summer 2026 U.S. Tour — opening night of a coast-to-coast run, on the most historically resonant patch of concert ground in America. For a guitarist who treats the stage as his primary instrument, there’s a fitting symmetry to starting here.
About Joe Bonamassa
Thirty number-one albums on the Billboard Blues chart — a record no other artist in the genre has touched, and one he extended this winter. At some point the credentials stop being remarkable and become the baseline. Bonamassa has sustained a level of commercial and critical traction that most blues players would envy for a single season, let alone across decades, and he has done it by treating live performance as the whole point.
His latest studio album, Breakthrough, earned a 2026 Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album. He spent much of the past year on B.B. King’s Blues Summit 100 — a 32-track centennial tribute to the late blues icon, built with more than 40 guests from across the blues, rock, soul, and R&B worlds. The records keep coming, but they exist mostly to give the tour something fresh to chew on.
Support on opening night comes from JJ Grey & Mofro — the Florida-born soul-rock outfit known for swamp funk, vivid storytelling, and Southern songwriting with grit under its fingernails — alongside rising blues guitarist D.K. Harrell.
About Bethel Woods
Bethel Woods Center for the Arts sits on the original site of the 1969 Woodstock festival in the Hudson Valley — a fact that never quite becomes unremarkable, no matter how many times you’ve made the drive. The outdoor pavilion at Bethel Woods offers exactly the kind of open-air room Bonamassa’s arena-scaled band deserves: more sky than any club ceiling can give. Parking lots open at 2:30 PM and general gates at 5:00 PM, so there’s no need to rush the back roads of Sullivan County.
Tickets
Tickets are on sale now, priced from $49 to $216 including taxes and fees. Showtime is 6:30 PM. Friday, June 26 kicks off the Summer 2026 U.S. Tour, which winds across the country before closing August 23 at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. If you’ve been meaning to catch Bonamassa in the open air, an opening night carries its own electricity.