Melissa Etheridge returns to the bergenPAC in Englewood, New Jersey on Friday, April 10, as part of her 2026 road show, The Rise Tour. Tickets go on sale Friday, Oct. 24 starting at 10a.m.
The Grammy-winning singer kicks off the tour on March 26 in Detroit, Michigan and ends May 9 in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. The complete tour schedule is here.
To purchase tickets for the bergenPAC show, visit Ticketmaster or call BergenPAC’s Box Office at (201) 227-1030. Tickets are $61, $81, $101, $131, and $181.
Etheridge, 64, recently wrapped her 2025 “Yes We Are Tour,” co-headlined with the Indigo Girls. Etheridge also toured with Joss Stone and Jewel this year.
In 2026, Etheridge is expected to continue promoting her 2021 album “One Way Out,” as well as pack her playlists with fan favorites spanning her 40-year career.
Melissa Etheridge: Early Career, Kansas Roots
A native of Leavenworth, Kansas, the singer known for her confessional lyrics and unique vocals started her rise to fame in 1988 with her self-titled debut album.
She left town in 1979 right after graduating from high school, but still maintains close ties there. Over the years, she did a special Hometown Tour concert for her biggest fans, and dedicated a baseball field in honor of her late father, Coach John D. Etheridge, who died in 1991. She also played a concert for the Leavenworth Public Schools Education Foundation.
In March, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly recognized Etheridge with the Governor’s Arts Award. Presented by the Kansas Department of Commerce and the Kansas Creative Arts and Industries Commission, the award recognizes and honors individuals and organizations for their contributions to the arts in the state.
The awards celebrate excellence, leadership, and community impact within Kansas’s arts and culture sector, according to the The Leavenworth Convention and Visitors Bureau website. The Leavenworth Convention and Visitors Bureau is the official Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) for Leavenworth, Kansas.
Etheridge pays homage to her hometown in the song “The Universe Listened” from her nineth studio album, “The Awakening,” released in 2007. “Kansas Dancing Shoes” from the 1992 album “An Unexpected Rain,” also gives nod to her hometown, as does “4th Street in Leavenworth” from the 2012 album “4th Street Feeling.”
She was nominated 15 times for Grammy Awards, winning for “Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female,” in 1993 and 1995. She also won an Academy Award, a Juno Award, five ASCAP Pop Music Awards, five GLAAD Media Awards, and others.
In 1999 Etheridge was ranked No. 49 on VH1’s “100 Greatest Women in Rock & Roll,” and in 2001 won the Gibson Guitar Award for Best Female Rock Guitarist.
She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in 2006 from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachuettes, which she had attended for three semesters right after high school. Etheridge dropped out in 1981 and headed to Los Angeles, determined to make a career in music. In January 1993, Etheridge came out publicly as a lesbian.
In 2011 received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2006 for “I Need to Wake Up,” for former vice president Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Etheridge: Genre-Defying Collaborations
Aside from co-headlining with the Indigo Girls this year, and hitting the stage with Jewel and Joss Stone, Etheridge has collaborated with numerous heavy hitters of all genres, from rock and country to pop and bluegrass. She performed in 2019 with Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo, and also Sammy Hagar, Joan Osborne, and Paula Cole.
Also recently, Etheridge:
🎸Recorded a duet with Trace Adkins “Love Walks Through The Rain” from Adkins’s 2021 album “The Way I Wanna Go.”
🎸Was featured in a remix of Serena Ryder’s song “Waterfall” from Ryder’s 2020 album “The Art of Falling Apart.”
🎸Sang a duet “Lost In My Mind” with her eldest daughter Bailey, who she raised with former partner Julie Cypher.
In 2024, Etheridge and Chappell Roan performed a mashup of their songs that made its way to TikTok here. She also performed her 1993 hit “Come to My Window” with Kelsea Ballerini at the 2024 CMT Awards, also on TikTok here.
In 1993, she released what would become her mainstream breakthrough album, Yes I Am. Its tracks “I’m the Only One”, “If I Wanted To”, and “Come to My Window” all reached the Top 40 in the United States, while the latter earned Etheridge her second Grammy Award. Etheridge has released 16 studio albums to date, the most recent being One Way Out (2021).
Etheridge: Family Matters
Etheridge began taking guitar lessons at eight and alleges in her 2001 memoir “The Truth Is…My Life In Love and Music” that her sister Jenny, four years older, sexually abused her from the time she was six years old until she was 11.
Her second memoir in 2023, “Talking to My Angels,” digs deeper into the alleged abuse, as did her limited engagement one-woman Broadway show, “Melissa Etheridge: My Window.” She also speaks openly about her mother’s alcoholism and neglect. And how the only way through is forgiveness.
David Crosby, who died in 2023 at the age of 81, was the sperm donor for two of Etheridge’s four children she raised with her ex-partner, Julie Cypher: Bailey Cypher, 28, who in September married Jocelyn Simone Rhude. And Beckett Cypher, who died in 2020 at the age of 21, due to opioid addiction, Etheridge said in a statement at the time. “Talking to My Angels,” goes into grappling with that loss.
The loss of her son prompted her to launch the Etheridge Foundation to advance new treatments for opioid use disorder and support “groundbreaking research.”
In 2006, she and her then-partner Tammy Lynn Michaels had fraternal twins Johnnie Rose and Miller Steven, who were conceived via an anonymous sperm donor. In 2014, Etheridge married actor and producer Linda Wallem.
A breast cancer survivor, she was diagnosed in October 2004. Despite losing her hair from chemotherapy, she still appeared on the 2005 Grammy telecast to sing “Piece of My Heart” in tribute to Janis Joplin.
About BergenPAC
The Bergen Performing Arts Center is located at 30 North Van Brunt Street Englewood, NJ 07631
Phone number: (201) 227-1030
Website: www.bergenpac.org
Founded in 2003, the 1,367-seat Bergen Performing Arts Center, or BergenPAC, is the area’s cultural center. Housed in a historic Art Deco-style theater with one of the finest acoustic halls in the United States, BergenPAC attracts a stellar roster of world-class entertainment. The Performing Arts School at BergenPAC is the innovative, educational performing arts initiative that, through programs, classes, outreach, school shows, and main theater presented shows, reach more than 30,000 students and community youth annually.
The Performing Arts School provides community youth, age 2 months to 21 years, with unique, “hands-on” training in music, dance and theater by industry professionals. It is through the ongoing generosity of sponsors, donors, members, and patrons that the not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) corporation BergenPAC and The Performing Arts School are able to thrive and enrich our community.
