Lupe Fiasco @ Pier 17 Rooftop (June 10, 2026)

This show was part of a short tour in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Lupe's debut / breakthrough album Food & Liquor. He played the album front-to-back, then added a few more songs. Lupe also brought a couple of friends onto the stage, including one who did some freestyling.

I arrived late, and missed the first few songs, but I don't really have any regrets about that. I wasn't particularly anticipating the concert, but thought it could be a decent time. The view of the bridges in the background was pretty cool.

--

Rating: Meh/5

James Blake @ Brooklyn Paramount (May 30, 2026)

This was my first time at this venue, which Fran described as cavernous. We arrived right as the first song was starting (we intentionally skipped the opener), and found a spot to stand by the end of it. Of note - the backing band has expanded by a couple of members.

I didn't enjoy the setlist (which appears incomplete at time of writing, and was loaded with new songs) quite as much as I did the last time that we saw James together, but there were still some good nuggets in there (including the aptly titled "Walk Out Music" as the opener). James had a lot of banter, though it was a bit difficult to understand sometimes due to a combination of mumbling and his accent. Fran really enjoyed the show (especially the dance-able parts) despite being less familiar with the music.

--

Rating: 4.3/5 

Jerry Seinfeld @ Beacon Theatre (January 10, 2026)

 

Jerry said that he was fine with phones at the show

Fran got us tickets to see a Seinfeld stand-up act as a Christmas present - she thought that it would be cool to see one of the icons of the genre. She wasn't wrong.

It wasn't the best stand-up show that I've seen, but it was also far from the worst. Notable points... He was (to me) surprisingly animated onstage for a 71 year old - glad to see that he's still got that. He also did some wordplay jokes a few times during the set - I forgot that was a thing that he does. The coolest part was that for an encore he took questions from the crowd for about 5 minutes - something that he apparently does quite frequently (even between shows like on this night - we saw the 5pm show, getting out a little before 7pm, and there was an 8pm show).