Jimmy Kimmel Is Reopening His Outdoor Concert Stage With Help From Chris Stapleton

Jimmy Kimmel may have lost a vice president, but he’s gaining a Southern rocker.

While Kamala Harris had to take a raincheck on her planned Tuesday appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, it turns out hers wasn’t the only special visit the host had planned this week. As Variety reports, Kimmel is resurrecting his outdoor concert stage on Wednesday with Chris Stapleton as his first performer.

Kimmel’s al fresco stage, which is located in the parking lot behind his Hollywood studio, has the capacity to hold more than 1,000 concert-goers and has featured an all-star lineup of artists in the past. Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, Elton John, Prince, No Doubt, Usher, and Snoop Dogg are just a few of the performers who have entertained Kimmel’s crowd over the years. But this week’s performance will mark the first in more than four years. 

The concert space was closed in February 2020, just weeks before COVID shut down most of the world’s entertainment venues. Stapleton is scheduled to sit down with Kimmel for an interview and then reopen the stage when he performs his hit song “It Takes A Woman.” It will mark the second big late-night event for the singer-songwriter this week; he was the musical guest on last week’s Ryan Gosling-hosted Saturday Night Live. 

There’s a fun irony that the “White Horse” singer will be the one to rechristen the stage, post-pandemic. In late 2020, he and Kimmel collaborated on a bit where Stapleton pretended to release a new holiday album, “A Very COVID Christmas,” featuring such “classic” tunes as “Disinfect the Halls” and “Oh, Clorox Wipes.”

While the full lineup for the reopened outdoor stage has yet to be announced, Variety reports that Imagine Dragons, Cage the Elephant, and Incubus are signed up for future dates.