Gospel's Biggest Night Comes Uptown

The Marquee

Gospel music hands out its own trophies on Saturday, August 15, and this year it does it in Charlotte. The Stellar Gospel Music Awards take Spectrum Center for their 41st edition, hosted by Kirk Franklin under the theme Feels Like Home, with Tye Tribbett, Kierra Sheard, Le'Andria Johnson, Jekalyn Carr and PJ Morton all set to perform. The name to watch belongs to this city. John P. Kee built the New Life Community Choir here in the mid 1980s and the Fellowship Center after it, and he has taken home close to thirty Stellar Awards since, which makes Saturday a hometown appearance in the most literal sense. Two things to know before you go. This is a taping, not a tour stop, so the room starts filling for a 4:30 show and the broadcast does not land until The Stellar Network airs it on August 29 and BET follows on August 30. And an arena crowd Uptown on a Saturday afternoon parks in the same decks as everyone else's Saturday, so pick one early and walk the few blocks.

Around The Neighborhoods

Uptown has a second reason to be out midweek. PJ Morton plays The Carolina Theatre on Wednesday, August 12 on the Saturday Night, Sunday Morning tour, three nights before he turns up on the Stellar stage a few blocks south. The room is worth the trip on its own. It sat dark for most of fifty years before the 2025 restoration, and a six time Grammy winner who also plays keys in Maroon 5 is exactly the kind of booking it was reopened for.

University City is where the volume lives this week. Truliant Amphitheater works five of seven nights, which is a lot even for August. Muse open it Monday, August 10 with Portugal. The Man and The Temper Trap, on a Wow! Signal run that ends August 31 at the Hollywood Bowl. Kesha brings the Freedom Tour on Wednesday, August 12 with Chromeo and MEEK. Tim McGraw takes Friday, August 14 with 49 Winchester, one of 33 stops on the Pawn Shop Guitar Tour. 5 Seconds of Summer have Saturday, August 15 on the Everyone's a Star! world tour. Avenged Sevenfold close it Sunday, August 16 with Good Charlotte, a 16 city pairing that neither band's fans expected to see. Going more than once is a parking decision as much as a music one, because the lot out there is always slower than the drive.

NoDa gets the week's hardest ticket. Franz Ferdinand play Neighborhood Theatre on Tuesday, August 11 with Sunday Mourners, part of a run they are calling the Greater Glasgow Cultural Exchange, and it sold out. A band that fills far bigger halls in Europe is squeezing onto a stage on North Davidson, which is the whole appeal. If you missed it, resale is the only door left. Saturday, August 15 is friendlier. American Aquarium come down from Raleigh with New Ways to Lose, out June 26 with Shooter Jennings producing, twenty years into a run that started in a college town two hours up the road. The Evening Muse takes the quieter half of that night with Tristen.

Out on Independence, Ovens Auditorium spends most of the week in Spanish. Mon Laferte brings the Femme Fatale tour on Wednesday, August 12. Friday, August 14 is Mariachazo, with Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan sharing a stage with Mariachi Nuevo Tecalitlan, and Vargas has been playing this music since 1898, which is not a typo. Then Los Tucanes de Tijuana close Sunday, August 16 with Tapy Quintero, corridos and cumbias and a crowd that will handle the chorus of La Chona without help. The one English night is Tuesday, August 11, when Brit Floyd run The Moon, The Wall and Beyond through the lasers and the inflatables.

The Music Factory stacks its two big rooms at opposite ends of the weekend. Isaiah Rashad plays the Fillmore on Friday, August 14 with Alemeda, carrying It's Been Awful on a tour named Lil Sunny's Awful Road Trip. On Saturday, August 15 the building runs two shows at once, Raq Baby downstairs in the Underground and R&B Only Fest late upstairs, so read your ticket before you pick a door. Sunday, August 16 belongs to Ella Mai at the Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre with AMA and Girlfriend, on the Do You Still Love Me? tour.

South End keeps it loud and local. The Philharmonik works Amos' Southend on Thursday, August 13, and Undertow takes the Tool songbook there on Friday, August 14 for a 16 and over room. Two more rooms sit outside the neighborhood map and still earn a night. Foreign Hands play The Milestone on Thursday, August 13, and Wreckno works The Rabbit Hole at 10 on Friday, August 14 for the 21 and over crowd.

The Comedy Card

Duckworth's belongs to Sam Salem, who runs five sets across Thursday, August 13 through Saturday, August 15, the doubles landing early and late on both weekend nights. His stage voice is the calm one, long setups and sharp turns, and he arrives with more than a hundred million views of sketch clips behind him. Matt Ross inherits the room on Sunday, August 16 with a pair of sets.

The Comedy Zone at the Music Factory keeps it short. La Chupitos take the late Friday slot on August 14 at 9:45, and Dale Elliott Jr plays an early Sunday show on August 16. The biggest comedy name of the week is south of both clubs. Jeff Foxworthy plays The Amp Ballantyne on Saturday, August 15 at 7, clean enough that people bring their parents and their kids to the same show.

Next Week's Radar

Truliant does not even take the Monday off. Motley Crue roll in on August 17 with Tesla and Extreme for the return of Carnival of Sins, and Luke Bryan follows on Saturday, August 22 with Drew Baldridge on the Word On The Street tour, the only North Carolina stop on the whole thing, which means half of it will be sold to people driving in from somewhere else. In between, Nikki Glaser holds Ovens Auditorium for two nights, August 20 and 21, on the Stunning Tour. Buy for one of those now if you want a seat that is not in the last row.