The Gray Havens are bringing Ghost of a King back to the stage 10 years after the album first arrived.
The 29-city anniversary tour begins Sept. 10 in Fort Worth, Texas, and runs through Nov. 8 in Louisville, Kentucky.
Rather than recreate the album exactly as it sounded in 2016, The Gray Havens plan to revisit the songs in what David Radford describes as an intimate acoustic setting.
‘Ghost of a King’ Started With a Voice Memo
Released April 8, 2016, Ghost of a King became the second full-length album from The Gray Havens.
Its beginnings were considerably smaller.
Radford said the title came from a short voice memo he recorded in 2015 that began with the phrase “met a ghost of a king.”
He did not yet know what the song meant, but the idea eventually grew into the album.
The 10-song project included “Shadows of the Dawn,” “Band of Gold,” “This My Soul” and “At Last, The King,” songs Radford says he has now performed hundreds of times.
The First ‘Ghost of a King’ Tour Was Much More Complicated
The anniversary also has Radford thinking about what happened the first time the band tried to take the album on the road.
Shortly after its release, The Gray Havens developed an ambitious idea: visit colleges and invite student orchestras to perform the album with them.
The students would receive the songs in advance. Then the band would arrive, rehearse with the orchestra and perform together that night.
On paper, the plan seemed simple.
In practice, Radford said the logistics quickly became overwhelming.
“Up until that point, I’d mainly booked house shows, so putting together a tour with that level of logistical complexity quickly had me feeling underwater.”
The tour ultimately happened, but not without plenty of help.
Ten years later, The Gray Havens decided not to repeat the orchestra experiment.
The Gray Havens Are Taking a Different Approach This Time
Instead, the anniversary shows will put the emphasis on the songs and the stories behind them.
The set will not be limited to Ghost of a King.
The Gray Havens also plan to perform favorites from across their catalog, including material from their latest album, This Is Not The End.
That album followed a new chapter for the band and its label, Blue Flower Records, which partnered with Syntax Creative in 2024.
The current version of The Gray Havens has continued building around Radford’s mix of narrative songwriting, folk-pop and literary imagery.
The anniversary tour gives those songs another context while returning to the album that helped define the band a decade ago.
Ghost of a King 10th Anniversary Tour Dates
- Sept. 10 – Fort Worth, Texas
- Sept. 11 – Dallas, Texas
- Sept. 12 – Waco, Texas
- Sept. 13 – San Antonio, Texas
- Sept. 16 – Rochester, Minnesota
- Sept. 17 – Green Bay, Wisconsin
- Sept. 18 – Madison, Wisconsin
- Sept. 19 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Sept. 20 – Aurora, Illinois
- Sept. 30 – Portland, Oregon
- Oct. 1 – Tacoma, Washington
- Oct. 2 – Bellingham, Washington
- Oct. 3 – Wenatchee, Washington
- Oct. 4 – Spokane, Washington
- Oct. 13 – Huntsville, Alabama
- Oct. 14 – Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Oct. 15 – Knoxville, Tennessee
- Oct. 16 – Greenville, South Carolina
- Oct. 17 – Columbia, South Carolina
- Oct. 18 – Charlotte, North Carolina
- Oct. 20 – Richmond, Virginia
- Oct. 21 – Bel Air, Maryland
- Oct. 22 – Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
- Oct. 23 – Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
- Oct. 24 – York, Pennsylvania
- Nov. 5 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Nov. 6 – Cedarville, Ohio
- Nov. 7 – Zionsville, Indiana
- Nov. 8 – Louisville, Kentucky
Tickets and individual show details are available through The Gray Havens.