Mustard Plug hit the road: 15 stops from Madison to Denver

The Grand Rapids ska-punk veterans run the Midwest through the holidays, play a hometown night after Christmas, then swing west in January.

Somewhere in the Midwest next week, a sweaty room full of people in checkerboard and suspenders will be skanking to songs older than some of the crowd. Mustard Plug are back on the road, with 15 dates in On at 8 markets between now and mid-January. They start in Madison on Thursday, Nov. 12 and finish in the Denver area on Saturday, Jan. 16.

The Grand Rapids band formed in 1991, at a time when, as frontman Dave Kirchgessner has told it, about 10 people in town knew what ska was and the band recruited most of them. Releases like Skapocalypse Now! and 1997's Evil Doers Beware put them in front of the ska-punk boom. In the 2000s, when many of their peers walked away from the genre, they organized the Ska Is Dead tours from 2004 to 2009. Local Spins marked their 30th anniversary a few years ago. Earlier in 2026 they toured the West Coast with The Toasters and The Iron Roses. This run covers the Midwest first.

The November leg is a tight four-show run. Madison's High Noon Saloon opens it on Nov. 12 (8 p.m., $21.90). Minneapolis follows on Friday, Nov. 13 at Ballentine Post 246 VFW (8 p.m.), then Milwaukee-area fans get them on Saturday, Nov. 14 at X-Ray Arcade in Cudahy (7:30 p.m., $21.80), a 200-capacity room. Columbus has the odd one out: a Sunday, Nov. 22 show at Rumba Cafe starting at 5 p.m. ($20), early enough to be home for a school night.

December is the holiday stretch. Cleveland Heights' Grog Shop hosts on Thursday, Dec. 17 (8 p.m., $27.75), then Detroit's Magic Stick Lounge on Friday, Dec. 18 (7 p.m.), Chicago's Bottom Lounge on Saturday, Dec. 19 (7:30 p.m.) and St. Louis' The Golden Record on Sunday, Dec. 20 (8 p.m., $29.40).

The day-after-Christmas show in Grand Rapids is the one to circle.

Then comes the one to circle. On Saturday, Dec. 26, the band plays The Intersection in Grand Rapids (7 p.m., $27.90). A hometown show the day after Christmas is a reunion as much as a concert, so expect old friends and anyone home for the holidays.

January goes west. Orange County gets an afternoon show on Saturday, Jan. 9 at Garden Amp in Garden Grove (4:30 p.m., $28.04). Then it's the Ivy Room in Albany for the East Bay on Sunday, Jan. 10 (7 p.m.), Goldfield Roseville for Sacramento on Monday, Jan. 11 (7 p.m., $24), Seattle's El Corazon on Thursday, Jan. 14 (7:30 p.m.), Portland's Dante's on Friday, Jan. 15 (8:30 p.m., $32.42) and the Gothic Theatre in Englewood on Saturday, Jan. 16 (8 p.m.).

Which rooms to watch? The small ones go first. X-Ray Arcade, Rumba Cafe and the Ivy Room are all around 200 capacity, and a band with 35 years of fans can fill that kind of room fast. The Gothic, at about 1,100, is the biggest stage on the run.

After all these years, Mustard Plug are still doing what they do best: playing bars and clubs. Find your nearest date, dig out the old horn-section T-shirt and get your ticket while you can.

Sources: Mustard Plug (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org); Mustard Plug's Ska-tastic Journey (Northern Express) (northernexpress.com); Decades of joyful, energetic, skank-inducing ska: Mustard Plug celebrates 30 years (Local Spins) (localspins.com); After 25 Years, Ska Fans Still Can't Get Enough of Mustard Plug (OC Weekly) (ocweekly.com); Mustard Plug Announce 2026 West Coast Tour with The Toasters and The Iron Roses (New Noise / Read Junk) (readjunk.com)