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The Afghan Whigs Bring the Soft Control Tour to Metro on November 14

Published

2 days ago

November 5, 2026

Photo: @theafghanwhigs

Nearly four decades after they formed in Cincinnati, The Afghan Whigs remain one of the great live bands in American rock, all guitar menace wrapped around soul music. Greg Dulli brings the Soft Control Tour to Metro on Saturday, November 14, behind a new album that proves the reunion years have real teeth.

The Afghan Whigs play Metro on Saturday, November 14, on the North American leg of their Soft Control Tour. The leg opened on November 4 in Orlando and passed through Atlanta, Baltimore and Brooklyn, with a Toronto stop on its way into Chicago, and it continues on to New Orleans and Austin before closing on November 21.

The tour carries the band’s tenth album, Soft Control, released on August 21, 2026. It continues the sound the Whigs have refined since long before alternative rock had a name for it: loud guitars folded into classic soul and R&B, with Dulli’s voice at the center of the storm.

Formed in Cincinnati in 1986 and led by singer and guitarist Greg Dulli, The Afghan Whigs stood apart from their early nineties peers on albums including Congregation, Gentlemen, Black Love and 1965, and songs including “Debonair” and “Going to Town.” The band broke up in 2001, reunited a decade later, and has since released well received new albums including Do to the Beast in 2014 and In Spades in 2017.

Metro, the storied Clark Street club in Wrigleyville, is exactly the kind of room where this band does its best work: close, loud and full of atmosphere, with the new Soft Control material standing next to the songs that built the cult.

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)