Carrboro Indie Night
Six Foot Blonde
Chicago-based indie pop/rock outfit Six Foot Blonde delivers a dynamic sound defined by soulful, powerhouse vocals with lush indie rock instrumentation. This six-piece seamlessly blends infectious pop melodies with raw rock energy, cementing their reputation as one of the Midwest’s most exciting emerging acts. They burst onto the scene from Bloomington, Indiana, forming during the pandemic in 2020 as an IU college cover band. They quickly evolved into a tight-knit group of meticulous arrangers. Frontwoman Julia Rusyniak’s soaring voice and deeply personal lyrics backed by a dynamic fusion of indie-rock slide guitar, synth, and three-part harmonies. Their infectious sound and explosive performances are rapidly expanding their dedicated fanbase. “The rare combination of earnest and exciting, the synthesis of frontwoman Julia’s tremendous vocal talent and heartfelt lyrics with a 90’s-alt-washed take on soul pop that is lush, tight-knit, and brimming with energy.” — MOKB Presents “Julia’s voice and lyrics resemble a modern pop artist, backdropped by indie-rock instrumentation uniquely their own.” – Melodic Magazine Website · Facebook · Instagram · Spotify · YouTube
Brian Fallon & The Painkillers
Brian Fallon is known far and wide for his elemental gifts as a songwriter, musician, and storyteller, including four acclaimed solo albums and his role as founding member and frontman of The Gaslight Anthem. Over the course of nearly three decades, the New Jersey-based artist has crafted a constantly evolving body of work, booming with insistent imagery, defiant romanticism, and an extraordinary emotional acuity that has marked all variations of his music from the very start. 2023 saw The Gaslight Anthem return from a long hiatus with History Books, their sixth full-length album and first new studio LP in nine years. The much-beloved band marked the acclaimed album with an epic tour schedule that saw sold-out headline dates and show-stopping festival performances around the world, confirming their ongoing place among the top ranks of American rock ‘n’ roll bands. Website · Instagram · TikTok · YouTube · Spotify
Ak’chamel
For over 15 winters, the name Ak’chamel has drifted like smoke through the underground-a thing half-seen, yet impossible to forget. Wearing nightmarish costumes and engaging in hallucinatory ceremonies; their singular sound comprising desert-scorched psychedelia, post-apocalyptic shamanism, and lo-fi ritual-folk is as unique as the physical theater of their live performances. They have released dozens of cassettes, several vinyl records, and a handful of cryptic VHS tapes. Their ungodly reels have been seen by millions yet understood by few. The group remains veiled in mystery, yet they tour often-through the United States, Canada, and Europe; bringing their unearthly plague to the world. Instagram · Bandcamp · YouTube
YHWH Nailgun
The quartet of Zack Borzone (vox), Jack Tobias (synth), Sam Pickard (drums), and Saguiv Rosenstock (guitar) display an innate ability to translate a primitive spirit into a modern form. Born during the lockdown as an experimental project between Borzone and Pickard in Philadelphia, the group expanded as the two moved to New York, adding Tobias for their debut self-titled EP, which was produced by Rosenstock, who was then integrated into the band. That first collection is one of self-discovery, of finding the tools necessary to make songs within the band’s own ecosystem. They honed in on their own world and their collaborative, close-knit writing process, discovering the essential structures and feelings that make YHWH Nailgun. Website
Whitney
Whitney return to the road in 2026 with a North American tour celebrating their forthcoming fourth studio album Small Talk (out November 7, 2025). Formed in Chicago in 2015 by Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek, the band has earned a devoted following for their soulful blend of tender melancholy and radiant warmth. Their debut Light Upon the Lake introduced Whitney with the beloved single “No Woman,” earning Pitchfork’s coveted Best New Music designation and praise for its “near flawless… low-key perfectionism.” Nearly a decade later, the band continues to evolve while preserving the intimacy and spirit that made them so cherished from the start. On this run, Whitney will share new songs from Small Talk alongside fan favorites, bringing their signature mix of laid-back charm and intricate musicianship to stages across the US and Canada, with stops in Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Toronto, Montreal, and more. “If you’ve ever seen Whitney live, you already know what a treasure their performances are. The Chicago-based outfit, led by the effortlessly cool Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek, has a gift for crafting songs that feel both timeless and deeply personal – sunny yet melancholic, tender yet bold.” – We Write About Music Website · Threads · YouTube · Facebook · Instagram
Carbon Leaf
Carbon Leaf’s fifteenth studio album, Time is the Playground is both a call to action and an embrace of the moment. Marrying nostalgic storytelling to nuanced, folk-infused indie rock, the Richmond, Virginia band embroiders heartfelt melody and harmony with acoustic and electric instrumentation to create a 12-song rumination on time, love and personal growth that’s equal parts urgent epiphany and contented exhalation. “Everybody says people don’t listen to albums anymore,” mulled Carbon Leaf frontman Barry Privett, holed up in a coastal cottage. “So, the challenge for us was to make something that felt good to get through from beginning to end … to listen to like a story.” Originally formed as a college cover band in 1992 and with over 3,500 famously enthused live shows together, Carbon Leaf helped to define the aughts indie rock that they ultimately outgrew and outlasted. They first earned national recognition with “The Boxer,” a song that won the American Music Awards 2002 New Music Award and made Carbon Leaf the first unsigned band to perform before millions on the AMAs. “The Boxer” entered regular radio rotation, Carbon Leaf’s tours grew bigger and better, and within a couple of years they quit their day jobs and inked a record deal. The band’s fanbase snowballed, drawn to their infectious spirit of commitment, empathy, communion, and self-reliance – not to mention supremely crafted songs with ultra-relatable, thought-provoking lyrics. After a trio of charting albums for Vanguard Records, multiple songwriting awards and headlining shows, Carbon Leaf opted to return to the complete creative control of their indie roots. Guitarist Terry Clark, who co-founded the band with Privett and multi-instrumentalist Carter Gravatt, converted his garage into the band’s Two-Car Studio, where they’ve recorded releases for their own Constant Ivy imprint ever since. Carbon Leaf’s DIY spirit even extended to re-recording their three Vanguard albums in order to regain the rights. Due in September, Time is the Playground is Carbon Leaf’s first full-length album in a decade, during which they released two EPs and a 27-song live performance album and Blu-ray. Time is the Playground gathers the best of songs written, in fits and starts, over 15 years, alongside brand new ideas. Privett dusted off old demos and shut himself away for months to finish their stories, while also honing recent compositions. With Clark engineering, Carbon Leaf – completed by longtime bassist Jon Markel and drummer Jesse Humphrey – spent a year and a half recording and mixing the resulting songs. “Thinking about these disparate pieces of music, I began ruminating on time itself,” Privett recalled. “The band’s been together a long time. You mature a bit and see yourself in place on the timeline … rolling around the scenes of love and growth.” Masterfully melding saturated AC/DC guitar and squelchy Cars synth, “Backmask 1983” is a fun flipbook of evocative era emblems – Farah Fawcett, “Satanic Panic,” Time Life Books, Bigfoot and more – that traverses the simultaneous nexus of Privett’s childhood/adolescence and the world’s analog/digital ages. It’s about morphing into a new person and a new planet with wide-eyed wonder and a longing to believe. Website · Facebook · Instagram · Spotify
The Arcadian Wild – Make It Out Alive Tour
The Arcadian Wild is an indie folk/pop group from Nashville, TN, led by songwriters Isaac Horn, Lincoln Mick and Bailey Warren, The Arcadian Wild confidently inhabits and explores an intersection of genre, blending the traditional with the contemporary. Combining elements of confessional pop, folk, progressive bluegrass, and formal vocal music, The Arcadian Wild offer up songs of invitation; calls to come and see, to find refuge and rest, to journey and wonder, to laugh and cry, to share joy and community and sing along. Website · Facebook · Instagram
School of Rock Chapel Hill House Band Senior Sendoff
FREE and Open to the Public, but $10 donations at the door are kindly requested and gratefully received to help cover fees for students with financial need. Thank you for your generosity. Website · Instagram · Facebook
Two Runner
Amid the excitement and ambiguity of a new start, Paige Anderson of Two Runner poses poignant questions on Porchlight, her resolute and tenderhearted new record. Beautiful string arrangements, intimate confessionals, and rollicking hymns for the lost and determined, here is an artist who’s been on the road consistently since early childhood – with persistence and commitment to her craft clearly in no short supply. Porchlight offers tunes that are warm and steady, relatable nostalgia twinged with the ache of needing to move on. The result aptly links the uncertainty of letting go and simultaneous resolve of someone faced with no other choice. A destiny perhaps sealed from an early age, as Anderson began her touring career in a six-person family bluegrass band from the age of nine. Now nearly a decade into her own music career, she’s seen stages warming up for Sierra Ferrell, Watchhouse and Molly Tuttle. Although change often comes en masse, it is surreal and jarring to start again. Paige Anderson offers Two Runner as solace and escape for those needing to reset, with sage comfort and kindness from her own accounts, the way all great songwriters do. Porchlight is perhaps best summed up by the chorus in track five, ‘Mocking Crow’: “Wake up tomorrow, there’s no in between – your heart knows what you need.” A reckoning, a stark look in the mirror, hope, and forward movement against all odds. Website · Facebook · Instagram · YouTube