Durand Jones & The Indications return to Santa Fe, this time at the Lensic

Eight years after a brewery show at Tumbleroot, the soul band plays the 821-seat Lensic Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, March 23.

The last time Durand Jones & The Indications came through Santa Fe, it was a Thursday night in March 2019 at Tumbleroot Brewery and Distillery. Eight years later, the band is coming back to a very different kind of room: Durand Jones & The Indications play the Lensic Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, March 23, 2027, at 7 p.m. The date was announced Oct. 22, and tickets are sold through the Lensic.

Moving from a brewery to an 821-seat theater says plenty about what's happened in between. The band has kept growing its audience, and the time away from Santa Fe has been busy in ways that go beyond the group itself.

Both of the band's singers made solo records in the gap. Durand Jones released his debut solo album, Wait Til I Get Over, in 2023, and drummer and singer Aaron Frazer followed with his second solo album, Into the Blue, in 2024. Those detours sharpened two distinct voices — Jones's grittier soul and Frazer's falsetto — that are central to the band's sound. Then the group regrouped.

The result was Flowers, the band's fourth studio album, released June 27, 2025, on Dead Oceans. It was their first new album in about four years, and the label framed it as a homecoming: the record grew from a desire to return to their roots in a Bloomington basement, where the band started. "Been So Long" was the lead single, a fitting title for a group reconvening after time apart. Reviews leaned warm; Scummy Water Tower gave it 4.5 out of 5 and called it a mature groove in all the best ways, a record that carries listeners back to the R&B and soul of decades past.

From a brewery floor in 2019 to the Lensic stage in 2027, the room has caught up with the band.

The touring hasn't stopped. This fall the band played big outdoor rooms like Fiddler's Green and Saint Louis Music Park, and it's on the bill for One Big Holiday in Mexico's Riviera Maya in January 2027, a couple of months before the Santa Fe date.

The Lensic is a good match for this music. Sweet soul ballads and slow-burning grooves reward a room where you can actually hear the backing vocals and the horn lines, and a seated theater on a Tuesday night is a different experience from a crowded taproom. Expect the Flowers material to sit alongside the older songs that built the band's following, with two lead voices trading off over a tight rhythm section.

The listing files the band under indie and R&B and soul, which is about right. Durand Jones & The Indications built their name on a classic soul sound, but they've always reached a crowd that also turns up for indie rock shows.

For anyone who caught the 2019 brewery show, this is a chance to see how far the band has come. For anyone who missed it, eight years is long enough to wait.

Tickets are through the Lensic's own box office via the link on this page. A 7 p.m. start on a Tuesday means you can make the show and still be home at a reasonable hour, though after a set like this one, you may not want to be.

Sources: Flowers (Durand Jones & The Indications album) (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org); Flowers (Dead Oceans) (deadoceans.com); Durand Jones & The Indications Return With New Album 'Flowers' Out June 27th Via Dead Oceans (Glide) (wpcms.glidemagazine.com); Durand Jones & The Indications – Flowers album review (Scummy Water Tower) (scummywatertower.com); Durand Jones & The Indications (Red Light Management) (redlightmanagement.com); Durand Jones & The Indications Return With 'Flower Moon' | 2025 Tour Dates (Spill) (spillmagazine.com); Durand Jones & The Indications at Lensic Performing Arts Center (JamBase) (jambase.com)