Armored Saint and Metal Church share a Sunshine Theater bill next Friday

The L.A. metal veterans make what our records show is their first Albuquerque stop on a fall co-headlining run, Friday, Nov 6.

Central Avenue on a Friday night is about to get louder. Armored Saint plays the Sunshine Theater on Friday, Nov 6, with the show at 7:30pm, and they're not coming alone. The date is part of a co-headlining fall tour with Metal Church, with LiveKill opening, as the band's label Metal Blade Records announced.

That's two long-running American metal bands on one bill in a room that holds about a thousand people, and for Albuquerque it's a first: there's no earlier Armored Saint show here in our records.

The run, billed as the Metal Saint Tour 2026, opened in Southern California at San Juan Capistrano and loops back to finish in Agoura Hills, according to the label's announcement and Blabbermouth's coverage. Before Albuquerque, Armored Saint's dates take in Orange County on Nov 2 and the Inland Empire on Nov 3. After New Mexico, the tour heads back west and north: Tacoma on Nov 14, Sacramento on Nov 18, San Diego on Nov 20 and the Los Angeles area on Nov 21. In other words, Albuquerque is the eastern edge of this run, the farthest from home either way.

Co-headlining tours are a good deal for fans. Instead of one band's set and an opener you've never heard of, you get two full sets from bands with deep catalogs and loyal followings, and the crowd tends to be split between people who came for each, which makes for a better room. With LiveKill opening, it's a full night, so the 7:30 start time is the one to plan around rather than an approximation.

The Sunshine is the right building for it. It's downtown at 120 Central Ave SW, a 1924 theater converted to live music in 1990 and now one of Albuquerque's most popular mid-size concert venues, and at around a thousand capacity it's big enough to feel like a show and small enough that you can see faces from the back.

Tickets are through the Sunshine Theater's own site. Resale listings have been floating prices in the high $50s and up, so buy from the venue first.

Albuquerque is the eastern edge of this run, the farthest from home either way.

Get there early for LiveKill, pace yourself through two headliners, and save your voice for the encore.

Sources: Metal Blade Records: Armored Saint to join Metal Church on US co-headlining tour this fall (metalblade.com); Blabbermouth: Armored Saint and Metal Church announce November 2026 North American co-headlining tour (blabbermouth.net); Live-Metal: Armored Saint to co-headline fall 2026 North American tour with Metal Church (live-metal.com); Sunshine Theater (sunshinetheaterlive.com); JamBase: Armored Saint at Sunshine Theater (jambase.com); Wikipedia: Armored Saint (en.wikipedia.org); Wikipedia: Sunshine Building (en.wikipedia.org)