Daya, the Grammy Award winning artist, is currently on her 2026 tour and stopped into DC’s Union Stage to play a fantastic show. While it seems like a very long time since we have seen her on tour, it was apparent from the very onset that she had come to leave it all on the table as she played an inspiring concert of nearly 20 songs, which featured superior vocals, music, and choreography.
As I entered The Atlantis, I slowly prepped my camera and noticed that the room was filled with a soft, electric anticipation. Bubbling beneath the surface, scores of twitchy feet gathered in shadowed spaces, attached to hushed convos above, awaiting the arrival of singer-songwriter Maya Hawke — aka Robin Buckley, from the beloved Netfilix series, “Stranger Things.” An intimate audience of all ages reveled at their good fortune for attending her sold out, mid-week performance in Washington, DC, the eve before the proper release of her fourth album, Maitreya Corso (Mom+Pop). Hawke describes Maitreya Corso as a lead character to a fantasy world of her own making; a “magical misfit, whose sheer inability to adapt to the surrounding world allows her to create a world of her own, and to explore the positive and negative power of the ego.”
The Afghan Whigs, the ’90s alternative grunge group from Ohio, are currently on their 40th anniversary tour — and they played the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, recently to an audience anticipating a high-energy rock show, which is what they received. The Whigs recently released their latest single — titled “Duvateen” — just after the recent release of “House of I,” which both were played during the 9:30 Club show.
The Lincoln Theatre was home to a classic rock revival that is unmatched. The world-renowned Queen tribute band, Killer Queen, stopped in DC on their 2026 US Spring tour. Formed in 1993 by Partick Myers and his fellow students at London University, the band was formed in grief following Mercury’s passing in 1991. Myers intended to play just a single show to celebrate the music they’d never experience fully again. Instead, their little band exploded into a decades long global touring group. Over the years, they became the first tribute band to secure a residency in London’s West End, won “Worldwide Best Tribute Band” in 1999, and were even picked to represent Queen in a restaged Live Aid charity concert.
The mellow trance and dynamic electronic sound of Oklou recently graced the stage at a sold-out show at 9:30 Club. It was a night of great vocals, creative lighting and melodies as Oklou moved further into her 2026 spring tour in the USA.
Since the 1970s, Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore have been at the center of what’s become known as Americana. Though they might seem to come from different worlds — Alvin from the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, Gilmore from the sparse plains of West Texas — they share a lot of common ground.
In their recent performance at The Birchmere, Dave and Jimmie shared songs and stories from their long career, with the added bonus of Lenny Kaye as their opening act.
Lots of musicians talk about “recreating” themselves or making a fundamental change to their sound.
Not all have been as decided in their pivots as Liz Cooper.
Fronting her Nashville-based band Liz Cooper and the Stampede, the Maryland native honed a sound that helped her steadily become popular among indie rock fans. She released three EPS and a live album before finally unveiling a full studio album in 2018. By the following year, she’d earned an invite to the Newport Folk Festival.
The dusty plains of West Texas have been a surprisingly fertile ground for the cross-currents of rock ‘n roll and country music, from Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, and Waylon Jennings to The Flatlanders (the late Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore). The West Texas Exiles are tied to The Flatlanders in that Jimmie’s son, Colin (whose voice shares his father’s distinctive warble), plays in the band.
Like The Flatlanders, all three core members (Gilmore, Marco Gutierrez, and Daniel Davis) are songwriters, and they share vocal duties. Their recent appearance at Jammin’ Java, their first in Virginia or the DMV, featured original songs and a few great covers that drew from their eclectic influences.
I’ve seen Courtney Marie Andrews perform live a few times, both as a headliner and as supporting act for City & Colour. On those previous occasions, she played solo acoustic, and it suited her material well.
In her recent appearance at The Atlantis, Andrews was backed by a full band, bringing out the musical sophistication in the songs on her latest album, Valentine, her ninth album, which was released earlier this year.
Danny Brown’s newest release Stardust takes the experimental rapper into a direction that can simply described as a fun time. After an emotionally charged, reflective album in Quaranta, the shift into a hyperpop medley just goes to show you can never predict where Danny is going to take us next. The Fillmore Silver Spring was tasked with containing the Detroit rapper in what was destined to be a largely lively show.
