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The Afghan Whigs Bring the Soft Control Tour to the Granada Theater on November 20
Forty years into a career that was never supposed to last this long, The Afghan Whigs have a new album, a new tour, and nothing left to prove to anybody. Soft Control is the band’s tenth studio album, and on Friday, November 20 the tour behind it plays the Granada Theater in Dallas, one of the last stops on the North American run.
The Afghan Whigs play the Granada Theater in Dallas on Friday, November 20, with the show set for 8:00 PM. Special guests Night Moves open the night as part of the North American leg of the Soft Control Tour.
Soft Control arrived on August 21, 2026 via Royal Cream and BMG, and it is the band’s tenth studio album. The tour began in Europe and the United Kingdom in the fall, then crossed to North America on November 4 in Orlando. Dallas is the second to last stop on the run, which closes the next night, November 21, in Austin.
The album and the tour follow a spring in which the band celebrated 40 years together on an anniversary run. Led by Greg Dulli, the Whigs built their name on a sound that folds soul and R&B into dark guitar rock, and the new record carries that same tension, with early singles like Jungle Roux pointing the way into the live set alongside catalog staples from across four decades.
The room fits the band. The Granada Theater on Greenville Avenue is one of Dallas’ historic theater rooms, the kind of midsize stage where a band like this plays close to the crowd instead of across an arena floor. A late tour date in a room like that, one night before the run ends, is where tours tend to give their loosest and loudest shows.
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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)
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