Shovels & Rope band members wearing yellow-tinted aviator sunglasses and black western-inspired attire, including a bolo tie, posing for a cinematic horizontal press photo against a dark background.
Shovels & Rope Credit: Press Handout

Fresh off a stripped-down fall tour, Shovels & Rope is ready to plug back in and get loud.

There aren’t very many venues better suited for the duo’s brand of sweaty Americana. For the uninitiated, Skipper’s Smokehouse is legendary for its oak canopy and history hosting acts like The Black Keys, Avett Brothers and Mofro before they hit it big.

Joel Hamilton, a Charleston composer working under the Mechanical River moniker, arrives supporting Parts Work, a majestic 2025 album of cathartic, folk and rock that was one of the best LPs to come out of the south last year.

Tickets to see Shovels & Rope play Skipper’s Smokehouse in Tampa on Friday, March 6 are still available for $30.

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Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief...