Jennifer Hudson is buzzing at the prospect of the first-full scale concert tour of her career.
“I’m excited to get out and meet the people and sing for the people,” Hudson, who hits the road March 31 in Albany, N.Y. with Robin Thicke, told Billboard.com Monday during a conference call with reporters. “I always love to perform live. The only other tour I’ve been part of is the (American) Idol tour, so this’ll be more intimate and personal.”
But Hudson did acknowledge that with just one album (2008’s Grammy Award-winning “Jennifer Hudson”) and material from her Academy Award-winning role in “Dreamgirls,” co-headlining with Thicke made more sense for an inaugural tour rather than going out on her own.
“I’m in a weird place,” she says, “like, ‘Wow, everybody knows Jennifer, but where do you place her? Who do you put her with? Where do I go?’ That was the hardest part of the puzzle to put together. I think we came out with a great solution.”
Thicke said that the Hudson would be using musicians from his band during the tour, along with her own backing singers. Each plans to perform for about an hour, and they confirmed that they’ll sing together.
“The good thing is Jennifer and I did a song on her album together (the Thicke-written ‘Giving Myself’),” Thicke noted, “so there’s a likelihood of me coming out and doing something with that. And then me and her are going to talk about doing an old song together, something that’ll get people all excited. First of all her and I have got to get comfortable with our own songs, then we’re gonna…see what we can do together.”
Hudson and Thicke will play 25 theater and casino dates together, wrapping up May 9 in Biloxi, Miss.