Tab Benoit and Duane Betts open the Southern Gentlemen Tour at Tipitina's

The joint run starts Uptown on Friday, Feb. 5, a Carnival-season Friday at Professor Longhair's old house, and tickets are on sale now.

A tour that starts at Napoleon and Tchoupitoulas is making a statement about where it comes from. Tab Benoit and Duane Betts are opening their winter run at Tipitina's, and New Orleans gets the first night.

Tab Benoit plays Tipitina's on Friday, Feb. 5, 2027, at 10 p.m., with Duane Betts & Palmetto Motel. The show was announced Oct. 27. Tickets are through TicketWeb, and the general on-sale was set for Friday, Oct. 30, at 10 a.m. local time, so they are available now. Tip's holds 1,000.

The pairing has a name: the Southern Gentlemen Tour 2027. JamBase's announcement puts the opener at Tipitina's on Feb. 5 and runs the tour through the Southeast for most of February. The Music Universe lists Hattiesburg on Feb. 6, Birmingham on Feb. 10, Mobile's Saenger Theatre on Feb. 11 and the Dothan Opera House on Feb. 12, with an Athens stop at the Georgia Theatre on Feb. 18 and a finish in Philadelphia, Mississippi, on Feb. 25.

Benoit is no stranger to the room. Tipitina's has hosted him before (Tipitina's), and his tours have a habit of starting close to home: his 2024 Night Train Tour began in Baton Rouge, as Grateful Web reported, and he has previously sailed on The Big Easy Cruise before resuming his "I Hear Thunder" tour (Grateful Web). OffBeat has covered his career for New Orleans readers. Putting a blues guitarist and Duane Betts with Palmetto Motel on one bill makes for a long night of guitar.

Opening a tour at Tipitina's is a way of saying where the music comes from.

The room matters. Tipitina's opened on Jan. 14, 1977, at the corner of Napoleon Avenue and Tchoupitoulas Street, in the former 501 Club building, and took its name from Professor Longhair's song "Tipitina," according to 64 Parishes. The club was a place for Fess to play in his later years, and he played there regularly until his death in 1980. It closed briefly in 1984, changed hands more than once, and was renamed Professor Longhair's Tipitina's in 1993, when a bronze bust of him by Coco Robicheaux was dedicated. In December 2018, the members of Galactic bought the club (Wikipedia). Every blues and roots act that starts a tour there walks past Fess's bust on the way in.

The calendar helps too. Feb. 5 falls in Carnival season, when the city is already out late. A 10 p.m. start is standard Tip's timing, so plan for a late Uptown night and a ride home rather than a parking hunt.

What to know before going: tickets have been on sale since Oct. 30, and this is the first show of the tour in Benoit's home state, so don't wait until the parades start to buy.

By the time the tour ends in Mississippi, these two will have played a month of Southern rooms. Uptown gets them first.

Sources: TicketWeb: Tab Benoit w/ Duane Betts at Tipitina's (ticketmaster.evyy.net); JamBase: Tab Benoit and Duane Betts & Palmetto Motel at Tipitina's (jambase.com); JamBase: Tab Benoit & Duane Betts Announce Southern Gentlemen Tour 2027 (jambase.com); The Music Universe: The Southern Gentlemen Tour kicks off in February (themusicuniverse.com); Tipitina's: Tab Benoit (tipitinas.com); Grateful Web: Tab Benoit's 2024 Night Train Tour Begins with a Bang in Baton Rouge (gratefulweb.com); Grateful Web: Tab Benoit Sets Sail on The Big Easy Cruise (gratefulweb.com); OffBeat: Tab Benoit (offbeat.com); 64 Parishes: Tipitina's (64parishes.org); Wikipedia: Tipitina's (en.wikipedia.org); When Is Mardi Gras 2027? (farmersalmanac.com); Tab Benoit - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)