We Speak Alternative

Blue October Play Foiled Front to Back at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory on November 27

Published

2 days ago

November 5, 2026

Photo: @blueoctoberband

Some albums become part of people’s lives, and Foiled is one of them. Twenty years after it carried Blue October from Texas clubs to national radio, the Houston band is performing the record front to back on a world tour, and the run opens a two night stand at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving on Friday, November 27.

Blue October play The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving on Friday, November 27, with the show set for 8:00 PM. The band returns the following night, Saturday, November 28, giving North Texas two consecutive nights of the Foiled 20th Anniversary World Tour.

On this tour the band performs Foiled in full, front to back. The 2006 album is the record that broke Blue October nationally, carried by songs like Hate Me, and it built a lasting bond with listeners who found their own stories in its writing about depression, addiction and recovery. Playing the whole album in sequence, in the order fans have lived with for twenty years, is the entire point of this run.

The Foiled 20th Anniversary World Tour kicked off in October 2026 and crosses North America before it closes on December 19 with two final nights in Houston, the band’s hometown. Irving sits late in the run, which means Dallas and Fort Worth get the tour in its finished form, weeks after the show has settled into itself.

Blue October is a Texas band playing a Texas room on this stand, and that matters to the crowd that will fill The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory. These are home state shows for a band whose audience here has been with them since long before Foiled, and the anniversary framing gives that audience the album the way they first heard it.

Darren Jessee Returns With Wistful New Single “Shoulder Season”

Published

1 day ago

November 6, 2026

We Speak Media

Darren Jessee. Photo by Dustin Condren.

Darren Jessee has been the drummer behind Ben Folds Five and the songwriter behind Hotel Lights, and his new single sounds like a man deciding not to put the pen down. “Shoulder Season,” recorded by Bonny Light Horseman’s Josh Kaufman, previews a forthcoming solo album due in 2027.

North Carolina-based singer-songwriter Darren Jessee (Ben Folds Five, Hotel Lights) is proud to present “Shoulder Season,” the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist’s brand new single lifted from his forthcoming solo album that will see a 2027 release. Recorded by GRAMMY-winning musician and producer Josh Kaufman of Bonny Light Horseman and mixed by Peter Katis (The National, Kurt Vile), “Shoulder Season” traces the paths people chart in and around our lives over the years. The track also invites close listening, which in turn draws attention to Jessee’s evocative lyrics as well as the nuanced instrumental performances he and Kaufman captured on tape. “‘Shoulder Season’ … I liked the words by themselves,” Jessee says. “They suggest perseverance and resilience during a season of time. The term shoulder season means a transitional time of year.” Watch the music video for “Shoulder Season” on YouTube.

Darren Jessee was in a period of personal upheaval. His mother had recently passed away after a short illness. He was also touring as a drummer for the Americana act Chatham County Line, a gig that he enjoyed but one that kept him from performing much as a solo artist. And then his label rep at Bar/None, home of Jessee’s last seven albums, retired. In the wake of it all, Jessee found himself wondering if it was perhaps time to set aside the burden of managing a songwriting career and simply lean into his work as a drummer. “But then I just kept finding these songs and enjoying them,” he says of his forthcoming solo showcase that symbolizes a new beginning for the veteran musician — an organic, hushed and transcendent sound very much inspired by the blizzard that the album was recorded in.

Stay tuned for more music and information on Darren Jessee’s forthcoming solo album to be announced in the coming weeks. Jessee will be making the following appearances in November:

November 12 — Wake Forest, NC — Wake Forest Listening Room

November 18 — Greensboro, NC — Flat Iron (with Natalie Jane Hill)