Sylvan Esso
Amelia Meath's plainspoken hooks over Nick Sanborn's modular synth pulses: Durham electronic pop that clicks in a club and still sings in a field.
Sylvan Esso's hometown festival, back after a year off: three headline nights at DPAC, a free Saturday matinee, and late shows in three downtown rooms.
Name a few bands you love and we'll scout all 31 acts on the Good Moon bill for the ones you shouldn't miss.
Set times are out for Good Moon 2026. Save any act and it lands on your day-by-day plan, with overlapping sets flagged so you can see what you would miss. No account needed to start.
Good Moon is Sylvan Esso's own festival, run with their Psychic Hotline label, and after skipping 2025 it comes back October 8 to 10, 2026 in a new shape. The ballpark editions at Historic Durham Athletic Park and, in 2024, Durham Bulls Athletic Park are gone; this year the base of operations is the Durham Performing Arts Center, with three headline nights there (Sylvan Esso on Thursday and Saturday, Tyler Childers on Friday, doors 6, show 7), and everything else within a walk of it downtown.
Each DPAC night pairs the headliner with one special guest: Meshell Ndegeocello on Thursday, the poet aja monet before Tyler Childers on Friday, and Mexican singer Silvana Estrada on Saturday. Then the late shows start. Bay 7 at American Tobacco Campus hosts William Tyler and Yasmin Williams in a shared guitar night, Seoul's pansori dance band Leenalchi, and Circuit des Yeux presenting her 'Wordless Music' program. BOOM Club, booked with the No Visa collective, runs the DJ end with Jacques Greene, a GRRL x Made of Oak live set and Armana Khan. The Pinhook takes the bands: Star Moles, Kumo 99 with Babe Haven, and the Mississippi family disco-soul of Annie & the Caldwells.
Saturday afternoon is free. From 3pm the American Tobacco Campus amphitheater has MJ Lenderman, Rodrigo Amarante and Woke County Speedway, plus the North Carolina premiere of William Tyler's music film Time Indefinite, with vendors and everything before 6pm open to anyone. Tickets are per show (DPAC nights from $45.50 plus fees, late shows $40 in advance or $20 at the door if there is room), and a VIP weekend pass covers all three DPAC nights, every late show and the matinee.
Expect electronic, jazz, soul and singer-songwriter across 31 acts.
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Amelia Meath's plainspoken hooks over Nick Sanborn's modular synth pulses: Durham electronic pop that clicks in a club and still sings in a field.
Eastern Kentucky songwriting with fiddle front and centre — plainspoken, regional, and completely uncompromised, honky-tonks to arenas without changing a thing.
Brooklyn-born surrealist blues poet reading over a live jazz band; her debut album turned a decade of verse into a spoken-word record with real swing.
A West Point, Mississippi family band playing church-raised disco soul; four decades in, a Luaka Bop debut finally put them on the road.
Haley Fohr's four-octave baritone over orchestral art-rock and drone, out of Chicago; each record is a bigger, darker production than the last.
Music curator Derrick Gee's record-recommendation videos turned into a live listening show: he spins and talks through what he loves and why.
Nick Sanborn's Made of Oak alias, the modular half of Sylvan Esso, in a live back-to-back with Triangle producer GRRL.
Montreal producer whose chopped-vocal house helped define a whole strand of the 2010s — 'Another Girl' glow, still radiating.
Ami Komai's hardcore-bred shout over Nate Donmoyer's jungle and drum and bass breaks: rave music built for a pit rather than a chill-out room.
Seoul band setting pansori singers over two basses and a drummer, so a 200-year-old Korean epic comes out as taut, deadpan dance-punk.
Bassist, singer and bandleader who has slid between funk, jazz, soul and spoken word since the early nineties, and keeps winning Grammys for the jazz end.
Asheville guitarist whose deadpan, Crazy Horse-leaning songs about wasted afternoons made Manning Fireworks one of 2024's most loved rock records.
Rio songwriter from Los Hermanos and Little Joy, singing hushed bossa-tinged folk in three languages; the Narcos theme 'Tuyo' is his.
Veracruz songwriter with a cuatro and one of the most arresting voices in Latin folk — jazz-schooled, heartbreak-fluent.
Nashville's cosmic guitar cartographer — instrumentals that feel like interstate sunsets, American primitive tradition with a widescreen lens.
Fingerstyle guitarist who lays the instrument flat on her lap, taps it like a piano and adds kalimba and tap shoes; her Nonesuch album Acadia is instrumental folk built from one note at a time.
Fingerpicked folk with a choral, hymn-like weight from a trans songwriter on 4AD; The King traded the early warmth for spare, grief-struck intensity.
Durham punk band with riot grrrl bite and pop hooks, built on the local DIY circuit and loud enough to have outgrown it.
AACM flutist Nicole Mitchell and Megafaun drummer Joe Westerlund improvising as a duo, spiritual jazz and freeform percussion in open conversation.
Non-hierarchical NC collective where old-time stringband tradition dissolves into DIY noise and drone — anywhere from two to twelve players.
Times shown are each show's start time as ticketed (doors an hour earlier at DPAC and The Pinhook). Running orders within a show have not been published; the opener goes on first. Derrick Gee's 'Radio Hour Live' has no venue or day announced yet.
Sylvan Esso, Meshell Ndegeocello, William Tyler, Yasmin Williams, Jacques Greene, Star Moles + 4 more
Tyler Childers, aja monet, Leenalchi, GRRL x Made of Oak, Kumo 99, Nicole Mitchell & Joe Westerlund + 3 more
Sylvan Esso, Silvana Estrada, MJ Lenderman, Rodrigo Amarante, Circuit des Yeux, Armana Khan + 6 more
October 8 to 10, 2026 in downtown Durham, NC. The headline shows are at the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC); late shows are at Bay 7, BOOM Club and The Pinhook, and the free Saturday matinee is at the American Tobacco Campus amphitheater.
Thursday October 8: Sylvan Esso with Meshell Ndegeocello. Friday October 9: Tyler Childers with aja monet. Saturday October 10: Sylvan Esso with Silvana Estrada. Doors are 6pm and shows start at 7pm each night.
Each show is ticketed on its own. DPAC nights run $45.50 to $89.50 plus a $4 facility fee and ticketing fees, late shows are $40 in advance or $20 cash or card at the door from 10pm if space allows, and the Saturday matinee is free. A VIP weekend pass includes the same seats at all three DPAC nights, priority entry to every late show and the matinee, a merch bundle and a happy hour.
Everything before 6pm on Saturday October 10 at the American Tobacco Campus: MJ Lenderman, Rodrigo Amarante, Woke County Speedway, the North Carolina premiere of William Tyler's film Time Indefinite, and vendors. It starts at 3pm.
Sylvan Esso (Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn) and their Durham label and collective Psychic Hotline. Earlier editions ran at the Historic Durham Athletic Park and, in 2024, at Durham Bulls Athletic Park with Fleet Foxes; there was no festival in 2025.
The Pinhook shows are all ages. Check each venue's listing for Bay 7 and BOOM Club before buying.
Thursday, October 8: Sylvan Esso, Meshell Ndegeocello, William Tyler, Yasmin Williams, Jacques Greene, Star Moles, plus 4 more acts.
Friday, October 9: Tyler Childers, aja monet, Leenalchi, GRRL x Made of Oak, Kumo 99, Nicole Mitchell & Joe Westerlund, plus 3 more acts.
Saturday, October 10: Sylvan Esso, Silvana Estrada, MJ Lenderman, Rodrigo Amarante, Circuit des Yeux, Armana Khan, plus 6 more acts.
Yes. The full schedule is live: the day-by-day section on this page lists every act with its set time.
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