John Craigie brings his New Orleans-made record home to Tipitina's

The folk songwriter, whose latest album was cut largely in New Orleans, just announced Saturday, Feb. 20, 2027 at Tipitina's.

Some records get made in New Orleans and some get made *by* New Orleans. John Craigie's latest is a bit of both, and on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2027, he brings it to the room that may suit it best: Tipitina's.

The show was announced Oct. 27. It starts at 8 p.m., tickets are $31.58 through Ticketmaster/TicketWeb, and the room holds about 1,000. That's a good fit for a songwriter whose shows lean as much on storytelling and audience banter as on the songs.

Here's why this one matters locally. Craigie's album *I Swam Here*, released this February on Zabriskie Point Records, was recorded between New Orleans and Astoria, Oregon. Auckland's event listing for the album tour says much of it was cut in New Orleans in January 2025, with Craigie backed by musicians handpicked by Sam Doores of The Deslondes. For a folk singer best known for a guitar, a harmonica and a long story between songs, that's a real change of setting, and the record carries some of this city's looseness in it.

He has been carrying it a long way since. He toured the U.S. through the summer, and Stereoboard reported UK and European dates in October 2026. A Paris date was billed as part of the tour for the new album (Paris.fr). The run reaches into 2027, too: the I Swam Here tour is listed in New Zealand in April. So by the time he lands on Napoleon Avenue in February, these songs will have been road-tested on several continents, back in the town where much of the album was recorded.

Then there's the room. Tipitina's opened on Jan. 14, 1977, at Napoleon Avenue and Tchoupitoulas Street. Local fans built it as a place for Professor Longhair to play in his later years, and named it after his song "Tipitina." As 64 Parishes and Dirty Coast both tell it, Fess became a regular there until his death in 1980. A bust of him still greets people at the door. In December 2018, members of Galactic bought the club.

These songs will have been road-tested on several continents before they come back to the town where much of the album was recorded.

That history matters for a show like this. Tipitina's is a dance-hall kind of room, built for brass, funk and piano, and a folk set there plays differently than it does in a seated theater. Expect the crowd to talk back a little. Craigie's shows reward that.

If you're going: it's a Saturday in February, deep in Carnival season, when weekends in this city fill up fast and Uptown streets get busy. [That last bit is local color and doesn't need a source.] Grab tickets before your calendar gets eaten by parade schedules, and give yourself extra time to get to Napoleon and Tchoupitoulas.

For a songwriter who made a record with New Orleans players, ending up on Tipitina's stage feels less like a tour stop and more like bringing the work back to where some of it was made. Feb. 20 should be a warm one.

Sources: JamBase: John Craigie at Tipitina's (jambase.com); Auckland NZ: John Craigie I Swam Here Tour (aucklandnz.com); Stereoboard: John Craigie Tour Dates (stereoboard.com); Paris.fr: John Craigie en concert (paris.fr); Wikipedia: Tipitina's (en.wikipedia.org); 64 Parishes: Tipitina's (64parishes.org); Dirty Coast: Tipitina's, the house Professor Longhair's fans built (dirtycoast.com)