Can't wait to hear reports about these shows.  It is a bit of an odd musical mix to be sure,  but discovering new artists / bands  is a big part of the fun . . bet both GPN and Brett pick up new fans from the  tour.
  I like most of  Brett's work - especially his lyrics.   He has crafted his music to suit his unusual voice   making it hard to imagine his songs being sung as effectively by anyone else. . . would love to hear Grace cover one of my favorites though.   

RE: his lyrics . . from  Daytrotter 's piece on him . .  http://tinyurl.com/lpo4rz 
<blockquote>For many people, graciousness and benevolence is a forced makeover that is shown when it's most needed, when that look will benefit them, and then it's dialed back almost completely, as if it's being saved for the most opportune times, but Dennen sounds as if he, or the characters he writes in his songs don't have those selfish bones. The great thing about this whole situation is that it never comes off as goodie-goodie, but more like someone wanting to write songs from the perspective of and as a decent human being. It's warming and it's surprisingly unique. It affects you. You feel like going out and finding a child that just fell and scraped up their knees on the playground and pull them back up, console them and very innocently give them a couple bucks for an ice cream cone, whenever the truck comes around the block. You want to be better yourself, damn it.</blockquote>