
Pop-rockers Hanson are heading into the next round of dates on their "Walk Around the World Tour" with a new mission in mind.
The band's latest crusade encourages fans to continue their pre-concert, one-mile walks to fight poverty in Africa, with a new goal of logging enough miles to walk "around the world" (24,902 miles). The campaign's "Take the Walk" website, set to launch in mid-August, will also help communities organize their own walks, and the Hanson brothers will donate a dollar for each mile completed.
"The Walk is about taking action, no matter how small," Taylor Hanson said in a statement. "Our generation has the power to fight global challenges by looking at tangible actions and putting them to work."
The trio's upcoming North American trek, which spans nearly 40 dates, is set to kick off Sept. 7 in Portland, OR, and make its way from the West Coast to the East Coast through early November. The first five shows on the itinerary (Portland, OR; Seattle; Vancouver; Calgary; and Edmonton) will be acoustic performances, according to a press release. Details are listed below.
Before each concert, Hanson will take a one-mile, barefoot walk with fans. The exact location of each day's stroll will be announced at the band's website three hours in advance.
The brothers will also offer up a new coffee table book, "Take the Walk," which features an EP with new tracks recorded especially for the project. Book sales will also raise funds for aid groups in Africa.
Hanson's 2007 "Walk" tour helped bring attention to the problems of poverty and AIDS in Africa, and the band teamed with TOMS Shoes to provide 50,000 pairs of shoes to children in that country.
Hanson released its fourth studio album, "The Walk," on its own 3CG label last summer. The set was inspired in part by the siblings' trip to South Africa and Mozambique, where they recruited children from a local orphanage to form a choir. Several tunes from the record are streaming at Hanson's MySpace page.