Ax and the Hatchetmen check in at Union Transfer on Nov. 13

A year after their debut album and fresh off the 'Stick & Poke' EP, the band brings the Late Checkout Tour to Spring Garden Street on a Friday night.

A year ago, Ax and the Hatchetmen were touring a debut album. This fall they're back with a second headline run, an EP and a bigger room in Philadelphia.

Ax and the Hatchetmen play Union Transfer on Friday, Nov. 13, at 8 p.m. Tickets are on sale through AXS. Union Transfer holds 1,200, and a Friday night there for a band on the way up is about as good a setting as Philly offers.

The run is billed as the Late Checkout Tour, and it's the band's second headline tour in about a year. Their debut album, *So Much to Tell You*, came out Oct. 24, 2025, and they toured it under the same name, including a November 2025 stop at Brighton Music Hall in Boston. In March 2026 they followed it with a deluxe edition. Then came a new single, "Stick & Poke," the title track of an EP announced for Sept. 25 on Arista Records. The EP is the freshest material they're carrying into this tour, so expect a set split between the debut and the newer songs.

The Late Checkout dates started in mid-October and have spent the past few weeks out West: Los Angeles, then August Hall in San Francisco on Oct. 28, Portland, The Crocodile in Seattle on Halloween, then Salt Lake City and Denver earlier this week. Philadelphia comes a week from tonight, as the tour works its way east.

The venue has its own story. Union Transfer sits at 1026 Spring Garden St., in a building that dates to 1889. From 1918 to 1942 it housed a baggage storage business for a railway company, which is where the venue's name comes from. It opened as a music venue on Sept. 21, 2011, a joint venture between The Bowery Presents and R5 Productions, and it's been one of the city's go-to rooms for touring bands of this size ever since. Look out back on your way in: in 2019, a trio of New York graffiti legends painted a wall of new murals behind the building.

At 1,200 capacity, Union Transfer is a step up from the clubs and a step short of the theaters, the size where an up-and-coming band either fills the room or doesn't. A Friday-night slot and a year of steady releases give Ax and the Hatchetmen a good shot at the first.

What to know before you go: it's an 8 p.m. start, so check the AXS listing for any opener, door times and the venue's bag and age policies before you head out. If you want to know the words, start with "Stick & Poke" and work back through *So Much to Tell You*.

Bands don't usually get a second headline tour this quickly unless the first one went well. Friday is Philadelphia's chance to see whether the late checkout was worth it.

Sources: JamBase: Ax and the Hatchetmen at Union Transfer (jambase.com); AXS: Ax and the Hatchetmen tickets (axs.com); Wikipedia: Ax and the Hatchetmen (en.wikipedia.org); Melodic Magazine: Ax and the Hatchetmen reveal new EP 'Stick & Poke' and drop title track (melodicmag.com); Melodic Magazine: Ax and The Hatchetmen announce US headline tour (melodicmag.com); WTBU: Ax and the Hatchetmen @ Brighton Music Hall 11/18 (sites.bu.edu); Live Nation: Ax and the Hatchetmen – The Late Checkout Tour 2026 (livenation.com); Wikipedia: Union Transfer (en.wikipedia.org); ThrillZing: Union Transfer, Philadelphia's historic 1,200-capacity concert hall (thrillzing.com); Streets Dept: Trio of NYC graffiti legends create wall of new murals behind Philly's Union Transfer (streetsdept.com)