Strokes To Open For Stones, Add Fall Headlining Dates

08/20/2002 3:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Mark Armstrong

(8/20/02, 3 p.m. ET) -- The Strokes will open for the Rolling Stones at a pair of shows on the legendary band's upcoming Licks world tour. The New York rockers will serve as the support act on October 4 in Landover, Maryland and on October 5 in Hartford, Connecticut.

The dates will put the Strokes in front some of their largest, and perhaps, most mainstream audiences ever in the United States. And what such crowds might witness is something they've never heard before--or at least that's how Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi sees it.

"The whole point, from when we were little kids, when we first started playing music was just to do something that was different than what was going on, you know? And although there's influences there, sure, there are, I still think it's something really fresh and different," he tells LAUNCH. "It sounds different. The sounds that are on that album, like, I've never heard sounds like that before anywhere, ever. I don't know. The whole point is to stand out and do something original and do something that no one's ever done before."

The Stones' tour kicks off September 3 in Boston.

Meanwhile, the Strokes have lined up their own headlining dates in October and November in support of their debut album, Is This It. The group currently has 21 shows scheduled through November 25, according to its official website (thestrokes.com), with a kick-off date of October 1 at a venue to be determined in Portland, Maine.

Strokes tour dates (subject to change):

October 1 - Portland, ME - TBA

October 2 - Boston, MA - FleetBoston Pavilion (opening for the Rolling Stones)

October 4 - Landover, MD - FedExField (opening for the Rolling Stones)

October 5 - Hartford, CT - Hartford Civic Center

October 6 - Philadelphia, PA - Electric Factory

October 9 - Toronto, ON - Air Canada Centre

October 11 - Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom

October 12 - Milwaukee, WI - The Rave

October 13 - Minneapolis, MN - Orpheum Theatre

October 16 - Denver, CO - Fillmore Auditorium

October 20 - Vancouver, BC - Orpheum Theatre

October 21 - Seattle, WA - Paramount Theatre

October 22 - Portland, OR - Arlene Schnitzer Hall

October 31 - Berkeley, CA - Berkeley Theatre

November 1 - Los Angeles, CA - Greek Theatre

November 9 - Las Vegas, NV - Hard Rock Hotel

November 15 - Oklahoma City, OK - Bricktown Event Center

November 16 - Dallas, TX - Bronco Bowl

November 17 - Austin, TX - Austin Music Hall

November 19 - New Orleans, LA - Saenger Theatre

November 22 - Boca Raton, FL - Mizner Park Amphitheatre

November 24 - Atlanta, GA - Tabernacle

November 25 - Raleigh, NC - The Ritz

-- Neal Weiss and Lyndsey Parker, Los Angeles

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