Last November, when Lady Antebellum kicked off their 85-city We Own the Night tour in Knoxville, Tenn., they had no idea that by the end of the U.S. leg of the tour, they would have played to more than one million fans. Last Saturday night (June 30), the award-winning trio closed the North American portion of the tour by playing with Darius Rucker and Thompson Square at Milwaukee’s Summerfest, marking an attendance milestone of more than 1 million fans.

The tour, which has been praised by critics for Lady A’s spirited live performances, will pick up across the pond next week, with dates in European countries and Australia. With a few days to decompress after traveling 46,000 miles to play shows all over North America, Lady A members Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood reflected on the wild ride they just completed.

“I remember how exciting and special it was to hear we sold out the first weekend of the tour back in the fall,” Kelley said in a statement on the trio’s website. “I seriously had no idea that so many others would follow, especially places like L.A. and Chicago, or that we would be sitting here eight months later saying we played to a million fans. It doesn’t even register.”

It’s possible that one reason why the tour was so special to Lady A and their one million fans is that the ‘Wanted You More’ hitmakers tried to get as close to their audience as possible.

“We invited fans up on stage most nights and just tried to get as close as possible to them…it was one giant sing-along each night,” Scott said. As a songwriter, it’s so cool to hear the lyrics you wrote with your best friends in the back of a bus echoing back to you by so many people.”

After being on the road for practically eight straight months, you would think that the award-winning group would be ready to take some space from one another. Instead, they have international shows booked until the end of October. Haywood claims that despite all of those hours on the road, traveling together drew Lady Antebellum closer.

“We’ve definitely become closer as a band – musically and personally – over this tour too,” Haywood said. “We are really proud of our show and how much we’ve grown on stage.  Moments like selling out two nights in our hometown of Augusta [Georgia] with all our friends and family around are really going to make us miss being on the road this fall, but we’re looking forward to working on new music and getting back into the studio.”

We’ll have to wait until later this year for the popular country stars to get back into the studio. But judging by their success in 2012, we have great things to look forward to.

 

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