Joni Mitchell is set to play her first headline concert in 23 years. The folk icon will take the stage at Washington’s Gorge Amphitheatre June 20, 2023, marking her first publicly announced headline set since she toured with Herbie Hancock in 2000.
Brandi Carlile, who joined Mitchell druing her surprise set at this year’s Newport Folk Festival, revealed the news on last night’s The Daily Show. “She said, ‘I want to play again.’… Joni Mitchell is going to play,” Carlile told Trevor Noah. “No one’s been able to buy a ticket to see Joni Mitchell play in 20 years.”
Since suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015, Mitchell has been holding private ‘Joni Jams’ for years, which has played a crucial role in her recovery, according to Carlile. She also said that the other musicians who performed at the Newport Folk set didn’t know Mitchell was planning to sing live that day. “We thought it was a jam,” Carlile told Noah. “We didn’t know that she was going to sing all the leads on those songs. She just started singing. We had rehearsed the songs ourselves, and we didn’t know whether we should stop or what we should do, you know, so we just sang with her.”
“She always has a plan,” she added. “She knows what she wants to do, even if she doesn’t say it.”
