38 Special Extends 50th Anniversary Celebration With First 2027 Dates

38 Special will continue rockin' into the night with even more shows in 2027.

The Jacksonville rockers usually play at least 100 concerts a year and are in the midst of capping off their current 2026 run, halfway through 30 additional dates that were revealed earlier this summer.

The shows highlight not only the band's 50th anniversary, but also, their continued dedication to new music.  2025's Milestone, renews their ties with longtime associate Jim Peterik of Survivor fame and features further collaborations with Train's Pat Monahan and Randy Bachman of Bachman-Turner Overdrive and the Guess Who.

Where You Can See 38 Special

Their first officially announced concert for the new year will find them on stage within their home state, Jan. 16 in Immokalee, Florida. Fans can look forward to making some summertime plans with the group as well, thanks to a July booking in Britt, Iowa.

But they've still got a good amount of road work to cover before they get to break the seal on a new year. Tonight (Oct. 2), they'll be in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, part of a short run of dates leading up to their next festival performance at the annual Rockin' in Paradise with Styx in Miramar, Florida on Oct. 10.

It is indeed, paradise for classic rock fans, who will get to see Styx and 38 Special, but also, bands and artists including the Marshall Tucker Band, Jefferson Starship, Tesla, Don Felder and the Outlaws.

Arizona, California and Nevada are just a few of the additional states they'll visit in October and November, before their touring run wraps for the year with a concert featuring Darryl Worley and Bryce Leatherwood in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.

You can see all of the current tour dates below.

38 Special is Celebrating 'Five Decades of This Madness'

"This year marks the 50th anniversary of us being together as 38 Special," vocalist and founding member Don Barnes told fans at a concert this week (Oct. 1) in Youngstown, Ohio, later going on to note although they formed in 1974, it was two years later when they signed their record deal, which really made things official.

"[It's been] five decades of this madness," he continued. "We just want to say we wouldn't be standing here 50 years later without your support over the years, in the MTV years and everything else. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you so much. We'll always remember that."

"What do you say we hang around for 50 more?," he asked the crowd at Powers Auditorium, sharing that the Milestone album, indeed, added a fresh milestone to their career accomplishments.

The initial single from the record, "All I Haven't Said," debuted on the classic rock radio charts around 160, he said, but in time, sailed to the top of the chart as the amount of airplay continued to build. To date, the song has more than three million total streams and plays of its video are over half a million as well.

Watch 38 Special's 'All I Haven't Said' Video

38 Special Has a 'Good Problem'

"All I Haven't Said' was one sample of the latest material the band performed from Milestone during their Youngstown stop (album opener "So Much So Right" was the other one) during an airtight 90-minute set. Guitarist Jerry Riggs, who joined the band in 2019, also was featured midway through the night, performing his song "Radar Rider," one of two tracks from his own group, Riggs, that were part of the soundtrack for 1981's seminal cult classic movie, Heavy Metal.

READ MORE: How 'Heavy Metal' Subverted Every Animated Movie Rule

Beyond that, the assembled crowd heard a bunch of hits. 38 Special landed nine Top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 during the heyday of their career -- warhorse fan favorites like "Hold on Loosely and "Caught Up in You" are just two of their most well-known.

But it goes even further than that. The band has a grand total of twenty Top 40 tracks on the mainstream rock charts. Which makes planning out a set list a little bit tricky these days.

"We have the good fortune to have so many hit songs or radio charting songs, so we do put little mini-medleys together.," Barnes told UCR last year. "It's two minutes, two and a half minutes of one song, like 'Back to Paradise,' 'Teacher, Teacher', from movies and [other] things, and then [we] bang it up against another song. So you get them in there."

"I guess it's a good problem to have too many hit songs, right?"

They're Still Chasing Their Next Good Song

Barnes sees a simple reason why they've had so many hits over the years. He calls it the "beacon" that they carefully placed within each song, something they knew would "jump out of the radio" and catch the attention of the listeners.

He still thinks that way and even if the passage of time has made things a bit more complicated, he's happy to continue to walk a different path. As he told Peterik, he had a certain vision in mind. "I told him that we didn't want to make an '80s style record," he shared.

"That was our style [with] hammering guitars and all that -- and, yeah, people can get a little taste of that," he detailed. "But we were trying to have an updated version, you know, a 2025 version of 38 Special. So we did take some risk and went outside of what we [are known for]."

"You're damned if you do, damned if you're don't," he explained in the conversation with UCR. "If you come out with something that sounds just like you did, that long ago, people are going to say, 'Well, it's nothing new. It sounds just like they used to."

"Then if you do something new, they go, 'Oh, that's 38 Special? That doesn't sound like they used to,'" he continued. "So you might as well forget all that and just do what makes your heart sing and make songs that you like. There's a lot of rock songs on the album and a lot of different things [for people to check out and enjoy]."

Watch 38 Special Perform 'Hold on Loosely During the 50th Anniversary Tour

Watch 38 Special Perform 'Caught Up in You' During the 50th Anniversary Tour

Watch 38 Special Perform 'If I'd Been the One' During the 50th Anniversary Tour

38 Special, 2026-2027 Tour Dates

10/02 - Jim Thorpe, PA @ Penn's Peak
10/03 - Webster, MA @ Indian Ranch
10/09 - Biloxi, MS @ Beau Rivage Resort & Casino
10/10 - Miramar Beach, FL @ Rockin' in Paradise with Styx + Friends 2026 (with Marshall Tucker Band, Jefferson Starship, Don Felder, Tesla, others)
10/11 - Clearwater, FL @ BayCare Sound (with Marshall Tucker Band and Don Felder)
10/22 - Mesa, AZ @ Mesa Amphitheatre (with Foghat and Jefferson Starship)
10/23 - Rancho Mirage, CA @ Agua Caliente Casino Resort
10/24 - Alpine, CA @ Viejas Casino and Resort's Concerts in the Park
10/29 - Napa, CA @ Uptown Theatre Napa
10/30 - Lincoln, CA @ Thunder Valley Casino Resort (with Foreigner)
10/31 - Fresno, CA @ Warnors Theatre
11/01 - Reno, NV @ Grand Sierra Resort and Casino
11/05 - Duluth, MN @ DECC Symphony Hall
11/06 - Wisconsin Dells, WI @ Crystal Grand Music Theatre
11/07 - Kansas City, MO @ Ameristar Casino Hotel
11/14 - Philadelphia, MS @ Center Stage at Pearl River Resorts
11/15 - St. Louis, MO @ River City Casino
11/20-11/21 - Breaux Bridge, LA @ Camp Margaritaville Breaux Bridge (with Darryl Worley and Bryce Leatherwood)
01/16 - Immokalee, FL @ Seminole Casino Hotel
0730 - Britt, IA @ Hancock County Fairgrounds