Jefferson Starship

The name was Kantner's before it was a band

Jefferson Starship exists because Jefferson Airplane stopped. Paul Kantner used the name first in 1970, for Blows Against the Empire, a science-fiction concept record cut with musicians drawn from the Airplane and the Grateful Dead. By 1974 the Airplane had wound down and the Starship became the working band, with Kantner, Grace Slick, Marty Balin and David Freiberg, who had arrived from Quicksilver Messenger Service.

What followed was the most commercially successful decade of any Airplane offshoot: eight gold or platinum albums. Red Octopus, released in 1975, reached number one on the Billboard 200 and sold double platinum, and Balin's writing and voice were central to the band through the mid and late 1970s. Slick left in 1978 after a run of troubled performances in Germany; Balin went the same year; Mickey Thomas came in as lead singer in 1979 and took the music somewhere Kantner was never comfortable with.

Kantner walked out in 1984, saying the band had become more mundane. The legal settlement that followed handed the Jefferson Starship name to Slick and manager Bill Thompson, and the musicians who stayed became simply Starship. That is why We Built This City and Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now are Starship records rather than Jefferson Starship ones — a distinction the band now deliberately ignores on stage, where the three names are treated as one catalogue.

A second life, then a succession

Kantner restarted Jefferson Starship in 1992 and toured it almost continuously until his death in January 2016. Cathy Richardson joined roughly two decades ago and inherited the front of the stage by attrition rather than appointment: as Kantner's health kept him off tours, she has said, "When he wasn't there, I naturally fell into that role."

Richardson is explicit that she is handling other people's songs rather than impersonating them. On White Rabbit she says she does "a little bit make my voice sound like Grace as best as I can," and she borrowed Slick's stagecraft as well: "She was very intense with her eyes. I'll give them a little of the eyes and stare directly at them." She describes the job as a responsibility she takes seriously and says Slick has been encouraging about it.

The right to the name has been contested since Kantner died. A lawsuit brought in 2017 by former guitarist Craig Chaquico over its use was settled. The band that tours now is Freiberg — the only founding member still on stage — with Richardson on co-lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Donny Baldwin on drums, Jude Gold on guitar and Chris Smith on keyboards and bass. Baldwin is not a new recruit either: he drummed for Jefferson Starship from 1982 to 1984 and then for Starship.

Mother of the Sun, and the first new music in six years

The current line-up's one full studio statement is Mother of the Sun, issued on 22 August 2020 through Golden Robot Records. It was the eleventh Jefferson Starship album and the first in twelve years, as well as the first without any Kantner involvement. Slick co-wrote the lead single It's About Time with Richardson and Gold; Balin, who died in 2018, wrote Don't Be Sad Anymore; former bassist Pete Sears played on three tracks, his first studio work with the band since 1984. It was Baldwin's first complete album with them since Nuclear Furniture in the same year.

Reception split. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine found it "overblown in a manner that's specific to the mid-'80s," while Maximum Volume Music and Liverpool Sound & Vision both scored it 8.5 out of 10.

In August 2026 the band put out Jetpack, its first new recording since then, cut at 2200 Studios in Sausalito — the building that used to house the Record Plant. Gold wrote the initial idea, taking a cue from Kantner's science-fiction habit, and described it as a fast rock tune with a guitar riff about grabbing a jetpack; Richardson finished the lyric, explaining that she "thought about why I would want to strap on a rocket and blast off the planet, and the words just came spilling out." Sears returned to play bass. Freiberg's verdict on the session was that it "recalled old times — having Pete there, playing his amazing driving bass with Donny." An album is planned for 2027.

2026: a tour that kept getting longer

The Runaway Again Tour was announced in December 2025 as a 19-date run, with general tickets going on sale on 12 December. It opened on 31 January 2026 in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, alongside the Marshall Tucker Band, and the touring package has rotated through Atlanta Rhythm Section, Orleans and Firefall, with further Marshall Tucker dates attached.

It then grew repeatedly. An extension announced on 11 February 2026 added more than ten shows, from SeaWorld Orlando on 20 February to the Hallenstadion in Zurich on 25 June and a September Midwest sweep through Peoria, Des Moines, Kansas City, La Vista, Cedar Rapids, St Charles and Jefferson City. Later batches added casino and theatre dates through the autumn, including the Oxford Performing Arts Center in Alabama on 6 October and Mesa Amphitheatre on 22 October.

The most visible dates were abroad. On 15 April 2026 the band confirmed two UK arena shows as special guests to Foreigner's fiftieth-anniversary run: Manchester's AO Arena on 18 June and OVO Arena Wembley on 19 June, their first UK appearances in more than ten years. Freiberg's comment was that "it's been a little over a decade since Jefferson Starship last played the UK, so coming back alongside Foreigner makes this run especially meaningful." Two headline shows in Germany followed before the Zurich support slot. Through the late summer the band also worked North American amphitheatres below Deep Purple and Kansas, including Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View on 5 September and Place Bell in Laval in August.

Twelve dates are currently on sale, starting at the Newton Theatre in New Jersey on 19 November 2026 and the Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena in Atlantic City the following night, then resuming on 15 January 2027 at Treasure Island in Welch, Minnesota and running through Rancho Mirage, Cerritos, southern Indiana, Bristol, Wilmington, Vero Beach, Shipshewana and New Buffalo to the Premier Theater at Foxwoods on 2 April 2027. Two cruise dates out of Fort Lauderdale are also booked for March 2027.

Ninety minutes, or forty-five

The set is built the same way whatever its length: Find Your Way Back first, Stranger second, then a run that treats the Airplane, Jefferson Starship and Starship catalogues as interchangeable. Miracles, White Rabbit, Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, We Built This City, Jane and Somebody to Love are the load-bearing songs, with Winds of Change, Count on Me and Fresh Air appearing when there is room, and Volunteers used as an encore in headline rooms.

Jet Pack went into the set in July 2026 and has stayed there, usually late and usually introduced as new, which is a reasonable risk in a 13-song festival hour. At Lakefront Music Fest in Prior Lake, Minnesota on 10 July the band played 60 minutes and 13 songs, including a snippet of Fooled Around and Fell in Love. On the Deep Purple and Kansas amphitheatre dates the slot shrinks hard: at Shoreline on 5 September they were on at 6pm and off by 6.45, ten songs with no fat on them, and China Kantner guested on the last two.

Reviewing a 90-minute headline show at the Englert Theater in Iowa City on 21 September 2025, KRUI's Carson Chittick described a projected history reel of band photographs and archive footage before the band came on, Freiberg looking plainly delighted to be there, and Richardson "enveloping herself in the mantle of Grace Slick and evolving from it." The audience, mostly long-standing fans, applauded and stood but barely danced — Chittick and his fiancée were the only ones up during one song, which Richardson noticed and sang at them directly. Richardson's own preview of the 6 October 2026 Oxford date was shorter: "It won't suck."