If you have spent any time listening to alt-country over the last few decades, The Jayhawks are a name you know. The Minneapolis band, formed in 1984 by Mark Olson and Gary Louris, is marking its 40th anniversary with a tour that lands in Nashville on Friday, November 13, at 7:30 PM. The show, billed as the 'Sanctuary Park Tour: Celebrating 40 Years of The Jayhawks with Special Guest Mary Gauthier', is set for the CMA Theater, which is about as fitting a room as you could pick for a night of this music.
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The tour shares its name with the band's 12th studio album, Sanctuary Park, which came out on August 28. It was recorded in Toronto over ten days with producer Bob Ezrin, and it takes its title from a place in Dundas, Ontario. The current lineup around Gary Louris, who still handles guitar and lead and backing vocals, includes Tim O'Reagan on drums, Karen Grotberg on keyboards, and Marc Perlman on bass, with backing and lead vocals spread across the group. It is a long way from the 1986 self-titled debut, and the discography since has run through Blue Earth, Hollywood Town Hall, Tomorrow the Green Grass, Sound of Lies, Smile, Rainy Day Music, Mockbird Time, Paging Mr. Proust, Back Roads and Abandoned Motels, and XOXO.
Opening the bill is Mary Gauthier, a New Orleans-born singer-songwriter who has spent her career working the country and folk circuits. Her writing pulls directly from a life that reads like a series of hard chapters: abandoned at birth, adopted, running away at 15, and spending her 18th birthday in jail. That history is all over songs like 'Drag Queens in Limousines', and she has been playing around Nashville recently, with a Gospel Brunch at City Winery on September 19 and a Queer Roots show at The Lipstick Lounge on September 17. Her most recent setlist, from late August, ran through 'Falling Out of Love', 'Judgment Day', 'Alcohol and Adderall', 'Drag Queens in Limousines', 'The War After the War', and 'Mercy Now'.
The venue itself is a big part of the draw. The CMA Theater sits at 222 5th Avenue South, right in the middle of Music City, and holds 776 people, which keeps things intimate for a band of this size. It was built with acoustics in mind, so the promise of a front-row experience from every seat is not just marketing. If you are the kind of person who would rather be close to the stage than far away in a big arena, this is exactly the kind of room you want for a 40th-anniversary set.
It is also worth knowing what else the theater has lined up around this date, because it is a busy run. Jake Shimabukuro with Sam Bush plays on October 27, the Stanley Brothers tribute 'Where the Soul Never Dies' is on October 28, Bruce Cockburn with Livingston Taylor is on November 1, Shaun Cassidy's UNWRAPPED show is on November 14, AJ Ghent & His Singing Guitar is on November 21, and the Dan Tyminski Band closes things out on December 6. For a night of alt-country classics, though, the Jayhawks date is the one to circle.
Published Date
17 October 2026
