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Enter The Haggis
City Winery Chicago
Enter The Haggis

Enter The Haggis

Exit The Haggis
03/03/2025
Mon 7:30 PM
City Winery Chicago
1200 W. Randolph St, Chicago
from $20.00

City Winery Chicago Presents Enter The Haggis on March 3rd at 7:30 PM.

A lot can happen in 30 years.

In March of 1995, the US approved the first chicken-pox vaccine, Michael Jordan officially came out of retirement and returned to the NBA, and Forrest Gump won the Oscar for Best Picture.

That same month, Craig Downie and a ragtag group of Toronto musicians played a St. Patrick’s Day gig together. When the venue asked them for a name to put on the poster, Craig suggested the name “Enter The Haggis.”

Somehow, nobody talked him out of it.

That name has stuck for three decades now. It’s been on posters and marquees at thousands of venues across Canada, the US, Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany, and Italy. Enter The Haggis has played festivals, cruise ships, rock clubs, theaters, casinos, and curling clubs.

We played Poultryfest in Smithville, ON - twice. We played a metal bar for 7 people in Edmonton, and left in a limousine. We drove all the way to Winnipeg (24 hours from Toronto) only to find out the venue didn’t remember booking us - TWICE. IN ONE SUMMER.

We also had the honor of joining Richie Havens and Roseanne Cash onstage at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. We’ve played at The Kennedy Center for the Arts, had a full-length concert special air on over 80 PBS stations across the US, and played on Live with Regis and Kelly, reaching millions of viewers and helping us build a 30 year career playing original music.

You’ve streamed our songs millions of times; proudly worn our t-shirts in countries around the world; acquired ETH tattoos and bumper stickers; and even named your pets after our songs. You’ve danced to our music at weddings, bat mitzvahs, and funerals. You’ve done us the honor of making our music a huge part of your lives and, as a result, you’ve become an irreplaceable part of ours. It’s been the best 30 years of our lives, since that fateful March evening in Toronto three decades ago.

We always knew it couldn’t last forever. In truth, it’s lasted so much longer than we could ever have imagined. We have, however, decided that it’s time. This March - March 16th, 2025 - we’ll be throwing one last huge party before we turn the page on this chapter of our lives.

It’s not an easy thing to say, and I’m sure it’s not an easy thing for our Haggis Head family to hear, but for the time being, Enter The Haggis is retiring from the road. We want to be clear: we are not calling this a “farewell tour.” We can’t foretell the future, and we know that life is unpredictable at best. There’s every chance that at some time we will reconvene on a stage somewhere, but we can say confidently that it won’t be in the near future.

This band has been a defining entity in all of our lives for more than a quarter century, and it seems unfathomable to imagine what might come next, but our personal situations have changed. Trevor can no longer commit to a lifestyle that takes him away from his family but will continue writing and producing music from his studio; Brian, Rose and Caroline have a full schedule supporting their latest House of Hamill album; and Craig has been working on his debut solo album that he’ll be touring in 2025 (more details coming in October!). Quite frankly, it’s just time to shift our focus and we want to Exit The Haggis before we feel overwhelmed by the current challenges to making it work.

Now for the good news! We’ve got a heck of a tour planned. The Exit The Haggis Tour will start on December 27th, 2024 at The Spire in Plymouth, MA, continue through New Year’s Eve at the Iron Horse, detour to Maine for two nights in Portland, veer north to Camp Haggis in Fairlee, VT, and culminate in a massive Spring Tour. The whole thing will end with an epic final weekend: Boston, Syracuse, and finally two nights at the legendary Revolution Hall in Troy, NY. We’ve created eleven studio albums over our career and we’ll be digging through the archives to showcase a wide variety of music, changing up the set list night-to-night. We’ll be reaching out to you to ask for suggestions!

Many shows will be announced in the coming weeks, but we wanted to get the word out about the final weekend of shows ASAP since we know a lot of people will want to make travel plans. We’re going to do our best to cover as much ground as we can, but the reality is that if you live outside of our ordinary touring territory and you want to catch a show on the Exit The Haggis Tour, you’ll probably need to plan on a road trip - which we wholeheartedly encourage you to do!

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you all for giving us the ability to live our dreams for three decades. You’ve financed every album, every video, every tour and every wacky idea we’ve ever had. You’ve never punished us for taking chances, never abandoned us for striking out in new directions, and never failed to welcome us every chance you’ve had - into your cities, your venues, your homes. We could write for an hour and never come close to expressing how much it’s meant to us.

Tickets start at
$20.00
Enter The Haggis
City Winery Chicago
03/03/2025
Mon 7:30 PM
City Winery Chicago
1200 W. Randolph St, Chicago
from $20.00