The Jonas Brothers were first asked to play Yankee Stadium in 2008. It was just a couple of years into their pop star fame.
“At that point it was like this meteoric rise for us over a two-year period,” Nick Jonas says. “I don’t think we believed we could sell it. So we told our management team, ‘We’re too nervous. We should play somewhere else.’”
But now, 15 years later, the trio will launch their worldwide “The Tour” with two sold-out shows at the home of the Bronx Bombers on Aug. 12 and 13. “It’s going to be a pretty magical way to start the tour,” Joe Jonas says. “We’ve been in rehearsals for about a month now.”
They recently played a dress rehearsal for about 200 fans. “They were very engaged the whole time,” Joe says. “I feel like it’s really easy to digest even if you’re not a super fan… But really for us it’s like walking through memory lane with our fans. It’s really great to see a lot of our fans grow up with us. A lot of them our age, if not older. Looking out at the dress rehearsal, I was like, ‘That fan was at a school tour we did in ’07 or ’08.’”
Nick teases that there will be surprise guests just before the intermissions start at the Yankee Stadium shows. “They’re very famous,” he says. “The surprise is going to be combination of different things that don’t necessarily include us. In other words, I will be excited to be watching this moment from backstage and seeing how the audience reacts.”
The three also revealed they originally wanted to do a Subway Series of concerts with shows at Yankee Stadium and the Mets’ Citi Field. Joe says, “Unfortunately, the Mets stadium was booked.”
One can’t talk about concerts these days without addressing the recent — and often very dangerous — trend of audiences throwing things at artists on stage. “It’s unfortunate these things keep happening,” Nick says. “It’s important to tell everyone that it’s very dangerous to do that and it should not continue. I don’t understand it. I can’t begin to understand it.”
Joe jokes, “I’ll have my baseball bat to hit it back.”
The Tour, sponsored by EVO ICL, includes more than 90 concerts across 20 countries. It wraps up June 20, 2024 in Belfast, Ireland.
