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Yes, Stevie Wonder is playing MSG. No, you can't afford tickets. See these shows instead.
By
Hank Shteamer
Published Nov 3, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. ET
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Mariano Regidor/Redferns
By
Hank Shteamer
Published Nov 3, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. ET
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The concert of the month, and maybe the year, will go down at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 19, when Stevie Wonder plays a 50th-anniversary gig for a little album called Songs in the Key Life. We regret to inform you, however, that the show is sold out and that resale prices are frankly unbelievable.
If you’re not one of the lucky ones already holding a ticket, don’t despair: While you may miss Stevie, November brings a ton of other enticing show options to NYC. An international folk fest, top-notch indie acts young and old, the final local appearance from a beloved jazz outfit — read on for the full rundown.
Brooklyn Folk Festival
“Everywhere you go there's this incredible grassroots music that's been around for hundreds or thousands of years and is played by regular people,” Eli Smith said in 2014, describing the sounds he spotlights at the annual Brooklyn Folk Festival, which he founded back in 2009. What’s special about the weekend-long event is that it defines “folk” as a sensibility rather than a genre. Alongside bluegrass pros like Tony Trischka and eminent singer-songwriters such as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, this year’s edition also presents Balinese music from Gamelan Yowana Sari; Lonnie Holley, the Alabama multimedia artist and improv-driven musical force; Dolunay, which performs Turkish and Rumeli songs; the Cherokee singer-songwriter Agalisiga “Chuj” Mackey; and much more across three nights, with late-night after-parties at Red Hook’s Jalopy Theatre.
This Is Lorelei
It’s funny that Nate Amos’s weirder musical project was the one that broke first. The guitarist and producer first rose to indie-rock prominence with Water From Your Eyes, his quirky duo with vocalist Rachel Brown. It’s only more recently that serious buzz has built for This Is Lorelei, the solo act he’s been working on for a decade-plus. His latest album under that moniker, The Singer in My Band, is one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the year, and deservedly so: Amos is an expert songwriter (he once said of the Beatles obsession he inherited from his father, “That’s kind of the closest thing to a religion that I’ve ever had”) who churns out timeless tunes informed by power pop, classic rock and country.
Durations
Public Records, Pioneer Works, Roulette, Whitney Museum, Nov. 9-15
Like the Brooklyn Folk Fest, Durations, which sprawls across various Brooklyn venues as well as the Whitney Museum during its weeklong run, is another conceptually driven happening that welcomes in many different aesthetics under a broad umbrella. As the organizers put it, the idea is to explore “how music connects body, mind, and imagination across time.” They’ve picked the right performers to help ensure a transcendent trip: Among the dozens of acts performing throughout the week are the master soundscapist William Basinski; revered electronic-music veteran Suzanne Ciani; accomplished composer Eiko Ishibashi, performing along with a silent film by Drive My Car director and close collaborator Ryusuke Hamaguchi; and incisive poet and theorist Fred Moten, appearing in his riveting duo with bassist Brandon López.
Chat Pile + Soul Glo
The past few years have seen a renaissance in wild, punk-descended sounds, and these two bands have both been major catalysts of that new wave. Chat Pile are one of the most unlikely breakout successes in recent memory: an Oklahoma City quartet (named after the toxic mining waste that still mars their home state) that marries controlled noise-rock bludgeon to howling catharsis and glints of melancholic beauty. They’re out behind their excellent latest, Who Loves the Sun, with support from Soul Glo, a Philly outfit that layers frontman Pierce Jordan’s unhinged inner monologues over a precision hardcore-punk attack.
The Bad Plus
The Bad Plus started out the 2000s as one of the buzziest groups in jazz and gradually evolved into an institution. Earlier this year, they announced a farewell tour, which makes its final local stop this month. If you mainly remember them as the piano trio that covered Nirvana and Aphex Twin, it’s worth checking back in while you still can. Now focused almost exclusively on original material, they’ve done some of the best work of their career with their current quartet lineup.
mary in the junkyard
David Addison, drummer for the rising London trio mary in the junkyard said recently that their name, dreamt up spontaneously by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Clari Freeman-Taylor, handily describes “the sound of having like pretty, sort of angelic things and then junkyard, grime and noise and stuff.” Role Model Hermit, their debut album from earlier this year, nicely balances intimacy and abandon, framing lovingly constructed songs with ear-catching textures like swelling strings and postpunk-y percussion. Already a local favorite, the band returns for a two-night stand at Baby’s All Right.
Mary Lattimore
Each month, the Guggenheim extends its hours on the third Thursday of each month for its Late Shift performance series. The pre-Thanksgiving installment is a great one: a solo performance by Mary Lattimore, a harpist who has expanded the sonic possibilities of her instrument during the past decade-plus. Employing loops and effects the way a guitarist might, she weaves a magic carpet of sound that’s easy to get carried away on. Especially when combined with the museum’s stunning spatial design, this one ought to be a real sensory voyage.
LCD Soundsystem
Knockdown Center, Nov. 19-22; Dec. 10-13
In 2011, James Murphy famously went out on top with LCD Soundsystem, the dance-punk band that helped to soundtrack the first decade of 21st-century NYC life. He once said that watching the band get bigger and bigger “just kind of sickened me,” so he threw a triumphant farewell bash at Madison Square Garden and called it a day. That is, until five years later, when he re-formed the band at the behest of David Bowie himself. LCD aren’t as aligned with the zeitgeist as they once were, but they’re still a massive draw, as evidenced by this 12-night residency spanning two big Brooklyn and Queens rooms. Come “Dance Yrself Clean” with Murphy & Co.
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Hank Shteamer
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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