Trombone Shorty

The North Carolina leg is short and it is lopsided. Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue play a brewery lawn in Fletcher, just south of Asheville, on Friday, October 9, 2026, then come down the mountain to the Fillmore on Sunday, October 11. It is part of a fall run announced in the summer that threads the South and the East Coast, with Abraham Alexander opening a handful of the dates including this one.

Troy Andrews got the nickname at four years old, carrying a trombone longer than he was tall through Tremé, the New Orleans neighborhood that has been producing brass players since before anyone thought to write the tradition down. Orleans Avenue is the band he has led out of it for two decades now, and the thing they do live is not a jazz set. It is funk and rock and second line brass pushed through the same horn section until the seams stop showing. The last studio record was Lifted in 2022, which means the current show leans on what the band has built on stage since.

The Fillmore holds about 2,000 standing, which is the right shape for this. A seated theater makes a brass band look formal and this one is not. Abraham Alexander is worth getting there early for, a songwriter from Texas working a mix of folk, gospel and soul that has nothing in common with the headliner except conviction. The Music Factory parking deck covers the whole night, and a Sunday show means the courtyard empties out fast afterward.