Events on Central

Kevin Barnes has been making gloriously unhinged psych-pop under the of Montreal name since the late 90s, and the live show leans hard into the theatrical mess of it all....

The Isotopes host Sugar Land in a Tuesday night Pacific Coast League game at one of the better minor league ballparks in the Southwest, which sits right on the Central...

Triple-A ball on a Wednesday night, the Isotopes hosting Sugar Land in a Pacific Coast League matchup at the ballpark that sits right on Central. Isotopes Park has genuinely good...

Four bands, one night, and the kind of lineup where the local names (Egregious, Manhunt) are probably the reason the room fills up. Moonlight Lounge runs tight on stage transitions,...

Triple-A baseball on Central Avenue, where the Isotopes face the Houston Astros affiliate Space Cowboys in a late-summer weeknight game. Isotopes Park sits right on the Route 66 corridor and...

Chatter brings its stripped-down, no-applause-between-movements approach to the Albuquerque Museum courtyard, one of the better acoustic environments on this stretch of Central. The crowd here tends to be genuinely attentive...

Profanatica, one of the longest-running and most uncompromising black metal acts in the United States, brings their blasphemous orthodoxy to Sister alongside Morbosidad, whose Latin black/death hybrid has its own...

Profanatica has been doing blasphemous, lo-fi black metal since 1990, long before the genre had a US fanbase worth counting, and pairing them with Morbosidad's Texas-bred death-black savagery makes this...

A fundraiser night at Painted Lady Bed & Brew on Central, with proceeds going to Pink Warrior House, which provides free housing for breast cancer patients traveling to Albuquerque for...

Painted Lady's Brews & Boos series turns its bar into a book club for readers who prefer their fiction on the darker side. The Bed & Brew format means the...

John Rangel brings a full quintet to Outpost, one of the few rooms on the corridor built specifically for listening rather than drinking. Outpost's sightlines and sound treatment mean you'll...

Pianist John Rangel brings a quintet format to Outpost's long-running Summer Thursday Jazz Nights series, now in its 30th year, with reedman Rick Keller and drummer Robby Beasley rounding out...

Two of the better team names in Triple-A baseball meet at Isotopes Park for a Friday night game on the Central corridor. The park sits at elevation, which means balls...

TwoLips comes back to Albuquerque for a homecoming set, joined by Tolliver, Clarq, and Thot Daughter in a late-night lineup that runs until nearly 2 a.m. local time. Sister Bar...

Cody Polston, a published paranormal researcher with decades of New Mexico fieldwork, presents a deep dive into Old Town Albuquerque's ghost history as part of the Painted Lady's recurring Brews...

Hotel Albuquerque's tablao series brings together a bailaor, cantaora, and guitarrista for a seated dinner show in one of the corridor's most architecturally fitting rooms for this kind of performance....

Five bands on one bill for a birthday party almost always means short sets and a room full of people who already know each other, which can go either way...

Three bailaoras, a cantaor, and a guitarist perform a full tablao-format flamenco show inside Hotel Albuquerque, one of the few venues on the corridor built for this kind of presentation....

Calle 66 takes the outdoor stage for the Friday salsa night in the Albuquerque Museum's long-running Music Under the Stars series, now in its 35th year. The museum courtyard is one of the better outdoor listening rooms in the city, with the Old Town adobe walls doing surprisingly good things for the sound. Tickets are...

Improv comedy night at The Box, co-presented with Improv Theatre, meaning the performers likely have actual training and structure behind them rather than a loose open-mic feel. The Box is a small, close-quarters room where there's no real bad seat, but there's also nowhere to hide if you get pulled into a bit. Tickets are...

This is a 45-minute long-form improv set running from roughly 10:15 to 11 p.m. local time, presented jointly by The Box and Improv Theatre on the Central corridor. The Box is a small black-box room where the audience is close enough to make eye contact with performers, which either energizes a show or exposes a...

This is the official after-party for the Hybrid Minds show, a late-night (or early-morning, depending on your relationship with Saturday) liquid drum and bass gathering running 8:30 to 11am at one of the corridor's odder and more welcoming rooms. Luna Kava Root is a kava bar, so the crowd skews sober-adjacent even when the music...

Sandia Performing Arts Company brings Ay, Compadre! to South Broadway Cultural Center, one of the corridor's most underattended performing arts spaces. The room is intimate and the sightlines are genuinely good, so there is no bad seat, which matters more than people realize when they're deciding whether to bother. Admission details haven't been posted yet,...

The Isotopes take on the Sugar Land Space Cowboys in a Triple-A Pacific Coast League night game at one of the better minor league parks in the Southwest. Isotopes Park...

Steve Earle solo means no band to hide behind and no setlist discipline, which at 51 years in is a feature and not a flaw. The KiMo's acoustics reward exactly this format, an intimate room where a single guitar and a ragged voice land harder than they would in a shed venue three times the...

A full tablao-format flamenco show with dancers, a singer, and a guitarist performing in the kind of intimate room where you feel the footwork in your chest. Hotel Albuquerque's venue...

Three bailaoras, a cantaor, and a guitarist perform a full tablao program in the intimate theater space inside Hotel Albuquerque, one of the few dedicated flamenco venues operating anywhere on...

In The Box Annex is bringing their quiz show format into The Box Performance Space, a black-box theater on Central that tends to reward audiences willing to play along with...

Three Kings, one stage: Enchantment Blues & Guitars works through the distinct vocabularies of Freddie King, Albert King, and B.B. King in a single outdoor set at the Museum's long-running...

Steve Earle strips it down to voice and guitar for a career-spanning set billed as 51 Years of Songs & Stories, which at this point in his life means you're as likely to hear him talk as sing, and the talking is half the reason to go. The KiMo's 700-seat art deco room is genuinely...

Survival icon Jordan Jonas, who won Season 6 of Alone living off the Mongolian steppe, steps into something stranger here: a one-hour "Haunting Magick" show folded into Painted Lady's ongoing...

Triple-A ball under the Sandia sunset, with the Isotopes taking on Sugar Land in what is reliably one of the better mid-summer crowds of the home schedule. Isotopes Park sits...

Sandia Performing Arts Company brings Ay, Compadre! to South Broadway Cultural Center, one of the corridor's most underused but genuinely capable performance spaces. The city-run venue keeps ticket prices accessible,...

Tablao Flamenco Albuquerque runs weekly Sunday matinees in a dedicated tablao space inside Hotel Albuquerque, one of the few venues in the state presenting this art form in a proper...

Jordan Jonas hosts a paranormal-themed evening at Painted Lady Bed & Brew as part of the ongoing Brews and Boos series, which has built a quietly devoted following along this...

Two acts, a ticket link, and a 5 a.m. close time: this is a genuine late-night at Insideout, the kind of night that doesn't get started until most of Albuquerque...

Two of the more respected names in contemporary heavy rock share a bill at the Sunshine, with Sword's desert-sun riff worship sitting comfortably next to Red Fang's beer-soaked, video-friendly stomp....

The Sword and Red Fang is a genuinely well-matched double bill, both bands trading in the kind of slow-grinding, riff-forward heavy rock that rewards a loud room, and Sunshine's PA...

The Brews & Boos series at Painted Lady Bed & Brew brings a horror-comedy standup hour to their Central Avenue taproom, leaning into the campy premise rather than treating it...

Vocalists Toni Morgan and Michael Matison share the stage for an evening of jazz standards billed as a his-and-hers conversation between two voices. Outpost is one of the few rooms...

Rastas Retro runs two back-to-back sets covering Soda Stereo, Caifanes, MANÁ, Enanitos Verdes, and more, all live, no backing tracks, with both male and female vocalists handling the catalog. The...

Held in the BioPark's Japanese Garden, this annual ceremony draws on Buddhist traditions of honoring the dead through Bon Odori folk dancing, taiko drumming, and lantern rituals, the kind of...

A seated flamenco dinner show in the Old Town-adjacent room at Hotel Albuquerque, with live guitar, cante, and dance performed in close quarters. Tablao format means the performers work within...

Three bailaoras, a cantaor, and a guitarrista perform a full tablao-format flamenco show inside Hotel Albuquerque, right on Central. This is not dinner theater dressed up as flamenco; the company...

Son Como Son brings their salsa and Latin ensemble sound to the Albuquerque Museum's long-running outdoor concert series, now in its 35th year. The museum courtyard fills up faster than...

A live improv comedy show at The Box, the UNM Area's most reliably weird little black-box room on Central. The space is small enough that the performers will absolutely make...

A comedy debate show presented by In the Box Annex, running just an hour at a genuinely odd hour of the night, which tells you something about the crowd it's...

Long-form improv at The Box means no sketch templates, no safety net, just a troupe building something from nothing in real time over a sustained run. The Box keeps its house tight, so you'll be close enough to see the performers' faces when a scene goes somewhere nobody planned. A ticket link exists, so grab...

This is a proper afterparty, kicking off at 8:30 a.m. and running until 11, so read that correctly: the night rolls straight into morning after CrankDat wraps. Luna Kava Root is a kava bar, not a liquor bar, which actually makes a late-night-turned-early-morning crowd more functional than you might expect. Tickets are through Hold My...

New Mexico United brings USL Championship soccer to the stadium that sits right on the Central Avenue corridor, this time against FC Tulsa in what the standings will likely make...

A seated dinner show pairing live flamenco, guitar, and cante jondo in the Old Town anchor hotel that has hosted this residency long enough to get the format right. The...

Three dancers, a guitarist, and a cantaor perform a full tablao-format flamenco show in one of the more architecturally appropriate rooms on the corridor. Hotel Albuquerque's space puts you close...

Five women share the stage for a blues night that is part of the Albuquerque Museum's 35th annual Music Under the Stars series, with Joanie Cere pulling the program together....

A late-night house party format event at The Lab At Stardust, running from 9 p.m. to nearly 1 a.m. local time on a Saturday into Sunday. The Lab tends to...

Improv Theatre brings a live, unscripted comedy show to The Box, a small black-box room on Central that rewards audiences willing to be in the room rather than watching from a distance. The Box runs intimate, so there is no bad seat, but there is also nowhere to hide if a performer pulls you in....

In the Box Annex is staging an improv-meets-cabaret mashup where the structure of a chorus line collides with the chaos of unscripted comedy, and the result is exactly as unpredictable as that sounds. The Box is a small, close-contact room where the performers are never more than a few feet away, which means the audience...

The cast takes audience suggestions and builds a Shakespeare-style play on the spot, iambic pentameter and all, in real time. The Box is a small, close room where the performers...

A one-hour tablao-format flamenco show inside Hotel Albuquerque, the kind of intimate setup where the performers are close enough that you feel the footwork in your chest. The specific artists...

Jordan Jonas brings whatever he does best to Painted Lady's Brews & Boos series, a recurring supernatural-themed night at one of the more quietly interesting spots on the corridor. Painted...

Albert Castiglia plays the kind of blues that doesn't sit still, built on years of touring with Junior Wells and a catalog that keeps getting harder and less polite. FUSION...

Triple-A baseball between the Albuquerque Isotopes and the Las Vegas Aviators, played under the lights at one of the best minor league parks in the Southwest. Isotopes Park sits right...

The Botanic Garden runs a 90-minute after-hours walk through the grounds once the families have cleared out, which is a genuinely different experience from the daytime version. The start time...

The Isotopes host the Las Vegas Aviators for a Thursday night game at Isotopes Park, the triple-A ballpark sitting right on Central Avenue in the UNM corridor. The start time...

The Isotopes, Oakland's Triple-A affiliate, take on the Las Vegas Aviators in an evening Pacific Coast League game at the ballpark sitting right on Central. Isotopes Park has some of...

Hatebreed has been one of the most consistent live acts in hardcore for nearly three decades, and their set is built around crowd participation in a way that actually means it. El Rey's floor is general admission and gets tight fast for a bill like this, so arriving early matters more than it usually would....

A Thursday evening fundraiser at Painted Lady Bed & Brew, with beer proceeds going to Barrett House, which provides transitional housing for women and children in crisis. Painted Lady is one of the more relaxed rooms on the corridor, the kind of place where a benefit like this actually feels like a neighborhood thing rather...

Triple-A baseball on a Friday night in late August, when the air finally starts to think about cooling down and the Sandia Mountains go pink behind the outfield. Isotopes Park...

Los Texmaniacs, the Grammy-winning San Antonio conjunto outfit led by Max Baca, play the KiMo with Lisa Morales, whose voice has a way of stopping a room cold. The KiMo's acoustics reward this kind of music more than almost any other room on the corridor, and the balcony fills fast for shows with a built-in...

This one is an open mic built around true ghost stories told by real people, not actors, not a scripted production. Painted Lady already leans into its historic-building energy, so...

Hotel Albuquerque has been running this tablao format long enough that the room knows how to hold it: low lights, close tables, the kind of physical proximity to the dancers...

Three dancers, a singer, and guitarist Chuscales share a small stage inside Hotel Albuquerque for a seated flamenco show that runs about two and a half hours. Chuscales is a...

Los Texmaniacs, the Grammy-winning San Antonio conjunto band led by Max Baca, share the KiMo stage with Lisa Morales, whose voice carries equal parts grit and tenderness through corridos and Americana. The KiMo's 1927 Pueblo Deco interior does something interesting to accordion-heavy music, the room breathes with it in a way a modern venue simply...

Two improv groups share the stage at The Box for an hour of unscripted comedy, the kind where the audience suggestions actually matter and occasionally derail everything in the best...

Long-form improv at The Box, starting just after 10 p.m. local time and wrapping up before midnight. The Box keeps its room small and its crowd close, which means the...

Thirteen years in, this festival has earned its place on the calendar, bringing blues and guitar-focused performance to one of the most architecturally loaded rooms on Central. The KiMo's Pueblo...

The Isotopes host Las Vegas in a Pacific Coast League matchup at one of the better mid-level ballparks in the country, a place where the sight lines are genuinely good...

Tori Amos brings her piano-centered performance to Popejoy Hall, one of the few rooms in Albuquerque with acoustics that actually reward that kind of intimacy. Popejoy is a proper concert...

A full tablao-format flamenco show with live guitar, cante, and baile performed in the heart of Old Town's anchor hotel on Central. Hotel Albuquerque's venue has the sightlines and acoustics...

Three Albuquerque-rooted entertainment outfits, AM ENT, JJ Official, and Reklez Ent, are co-presenting this throwback concert at the Lobo, the old movie house on Central that has found a second...

Poltergeist (1982) gets the bingo treatment at Painted Lady's Brews & Boos series, which means you are watching a genuinely unsettling film while also trying to mark off your card,...

Three bailaoras, a cantaor, and a guitarrista perform a full tablao-format flamenco show at Hotel Albuquerque, one of the few venues in the city that stages this art form with...

Dee Brown brings a full Ray Charles tribute to the Albuquerque Museum's outdoor amphitheater, backed by Bump City, as part of the 35th year of Music Under the Stars. The...

Two improv groups sharing a stage at The Box means the room feeds on itself, and on a good night that feedback loop produces something no scripted set can replicate....

In The Box Annex takes improv somewhere extraterrestrial with A51*, a one-hour comedy set built around the kind of absurdist premises that either land brilliantly or flame out in real...

Triple-A Pacific Coast League ball, the Isotopes hosting Las Vegas on a Sunday evening in late August when the heat has usually started to break and the upper deck becomes...

This is tablao-format flamenco, meaning the performers work close, the room is small, and the interaction between dancer, singer, and guitarist is the whole point. Specific artists are listed as...

Jordan Jonas brings his paranormal storytelling to Painted Lady's Brews & Boos series, a recurring late-night event that leans harder into atmosphere than your average bar talk. Painted Lady's intimate...

Gaia's Kava Root kicks off UNM Welcome Week with a jersey party, the kind of night that draws every freshman who just moved into the dorms and every upperclassman who never misses an excuse. The kava bar format means the drink situation is different from your standard bar crawl stop, which is either a selling...

This is the closing session of a ten-week jazz development series led by Rodney Bowe and Dimi DiSanti, two musicians who have put in serious time on the Albuquerque scene....

César Bauvallet runs a Monday night Latin music class at Outpost through the summer, a recurring series for people who want to actually learn something rather than just watch. Outpost...

A benefit concert rooted in tribal energy advocacy, with Tia Wood, The Bearhead Sisters, Destroy Kasmin, and DJ Young Native bringing range to a lineup that moves between acoustic weight...

The BioPark Zoo opens after regular hours for a ticketed adults-only evening walk through the grounds, with animals active in the cooler late-summer dusk in a way they simply aren't at 2 PM in August. The zoo sits a few blocks off Central, so this is a metro trip, but the parking is easy and...

César Bauvallet leads a recurring Tuesday night Latin music class at Outpost, one of the more acoustically honest rooms on the corridor. Outpost draws serious musicians as students, so expect a mixed room of beginners and people who already know what a clave is. The listing date reflects the series end on August 25, so...

Kanoa Kaluhiwa leads this all-ages weekly class at Outpost Performance Space, running every Tuesday through August 26 under the title Open Source. Outpost is one of the more thoughtfully run...

This is a multi-week adult band class taught by Kanoa Kaluhiwa, wrapping up with what is presumably a final session on August 26 at Outpost. Outpost runs these classes with...

New Mexico United, the USL Championship club that turned Albuquerque into a genuine soccer town, hosts Lexington SC at Isotopes Park on a late-August Thursday night. The supporter sections behind...

Two solo artists from the heavy-music underground share a bill here: Steve Von Till, known as one half of Neurosis's songwriting core, brings his sparse acoustic work, and Six Organs...

Triple Moon Bewitched sets up for tarot readings inside Painted Lady's Central Avenue brew house, part of the ongoing Brews & Boos series that mixes craft beer with occult-adjacent programming....

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, the Los Angeles swing band that spent the late '90s making jump blues feel urgent again, plays the KiMo Theatre on Central. The KiMo's art deco...

Black Veil Brides, the Los Angeles band that built a career out of glam-metal theatrics and arena-sized anthems, plays El Rey with Caskets in support. El Rey is a tight...

Black Veil Brides bring their Vindicatour US 2026 run to El Rey with a full four-band bill that includes Caskets, Archers, and Holy Wars. El Rey's floor gets genuinely packed...

This is a seated dinner-format flamenco show in a room that was built for exactly this kind of performance, with a stage close enough that you feel the foot percussion...

Horror trivia at one of the more characterful spots on Central, a brewpub that actually has rooms upstairs, which gives the whole Brews and Boos series a faint gothic logic....

Three dancers, a singer, and a guitarist perform traditional tablao flamenco in one of the few dedicated flamenco formats on the corridor. Hotel Albuquerque's performance space keeps the room small...

The Spanish Harlem Orchestra, a Grammy-winning nine-piece salsa dura outfit from New York, brings the kind of hard-bop Latin brass that doesn't get softened for festival crowds. The museum's outdoor...

Ron Crowder brings his new album, Moving at the Speed of Life, to FUSION 708 for a proper release show on Central. FUSION 708 is a small room, which means...

Two improvisers (or a full ensemble, depending on the night) build scenes from nothing in real time at one of the corridor's few dedicated performance spaces. The Box is a...

Long-form improv from the Improv Theatre company at The Box, starting well after midnight on a Saturday, which tells you exactly what kind of crowd you'll find. The Box is...

The instructors at Rock 101 Music Academy step out from behind the lesson plans and play a full night of live music at Rio Bravo Brewing. These are working musicians...

A seated dinner show built around traditional flamenco, with dancers, a singer, and a guitarist performing in the intimate tablao format that puts you close enough to feel the stomping...

Three bailaores, a cantaor, and a guitarist perform live flamenco in the tablao format, which means close quarters and no amplification between you and the footwork. Hotel Albuquerque's dedicated flamenco...

The Box is one of the few rooms on Central where improv comedy actually has a home, and this co-presentation with Improv Theatre suggests a more structured, rehearsed ensemble rather...

In The Box Annex takes improv comedy somewhere extraterrestrial with A51*, a short-form set built around an alien or Area 51 conceit. The Box is a genuine black-box theater, which...

A tablao-format flamenco show at Hotel Albuquerque, close enough to the performance floor that the footwork lands in your sternum. The room rewards early arrival, since sightlines from the back...

Jordan Jonas brings the Brews & Boos Event Series into late August with a supernatural-themed Sunday night at Painted Lady Bed & Brew on Central. The B&B format means this...

New Mexico United closes out August against San Antonio FC, one of the more competitive western conference sides in the USL Championship. Isotopes Park plays surprisingly well for soccer, the sightlines are better than you'd expect from a baseball conversion, and the supporter sections behind the goal bring enough noise to make it feel like...