KULA SHAKER
9/22/25 – Irving Plaza – NYC
©Alice Teeple
Kula Shaker returned to Manhattan on the evening of the autumnal equinox: this time, they landed at Irving Plaza on a stage lovingly decked out in bright color: malas draped across amplifiers, beads hanging from mic stands, the keyboard and drum kits framed like small shrines. The setup felt intentional, a space readied for sound and spirit alike. When Crispian Mills struck the opening chord of Great Hosannah, the atmosphere snapped alive.
Their set surged, urgent and combustible, Alonza Bevan’s bass running deep through the floorboards while Paul Winterhart’s drums galloped with unshakable momentum. Mills’s guitar sparked with each strike, Jay Darlington sending out washes of psychedelia that swirled across the walls. The audience didn’t need coaxing; they were already with the band, bodies and voices moving in tandem.
The familiar hymns came early: Knight on the Town, Shower Your Love, Grateful When You’re Dead / Jerry Was There. Each one pulled the crowd into chorus, voices rising like smoke. Newer songs from Natural Magick, like Idon’twannapaymytaxes, were greeted with equal delight from the audience. Rather than quiet pauses, they became eruptions, shouted back with the same abandon as Hey Dude and Tattva.
Midway through the set, their latest single, Good Money, turned the room inside out. With a gleeful grin, Mills flung handfuls of faux $100 bills into the air, and for a moment they seemed to materialize out of nothing – appearing in sudden gusts, tumbling under strobe light like conjured relics. A green storm swept the pit, fans diving, laughing, stuffing notes into their shirts. It was part sleight-of-hand, part cosmic joke: a ritual where currency dissolved into confetti, greed turned into play.
The chaos didn’t ease. Their cover of Hawkwind’s Hurry On Sundown unraveled into feedback before snapping back in furious clarity. Mystical Machine Gun swerved into Sabbath’s War Pigs before finding its way home. Bevan prowled with a grin, Winterhart battered his kit with near-destructive force, Darlington kept spilling kaleidoscopes of sound and light. The band was locked tight yet freewheeling, driving each other higher.
They closed with Govinda. Sanskrit syllables rose through the room, married to the guitar’s roar, the audience swaying as one body, chanting as though in ritual. In that final wave of sound, the venue shifted from hall to temple, collective breath meeting amplified mantra.
Outside, the equinox marked the balance of day and night. Inside, Kula Shaker had already broken the symmetry, flooding the evening with noise, colour, and abandon, tipping the scales into a blissful, gleeful excess.
On a night meant for balance, Kula Shaker tipped the scales into bedlam and bliss. The crowd, giddy and spent, gladly followed.
Kula Shaker are currently on tour in the United States:
- Sep 26 – Dallas, TX — Thu 8:00 PM · Longhorn Ballroom · Tickets
- Sep 27 – Austin, TX — Fri 7:00 PM · Mohawk Austin · Tickets
- Sep 30 – Tempe, AZ — Tue 7:00 PM · Marquee Theatre Tempe · Tickets
- Oct 2 – Santa Ana, CA — Thu 7:00 PM · The Observatory · Tickets
- Oct 3 – San Diego, CA — Fri 7:00 PM · House of Blues San Diego · Tickets
- Oct 4 – Pioneertown, CA — Sat 7:00 PM · Pappy & Harriet’s · Tickets
- Oct 6 – Los Angeles, CA — Mon 8:00 PM · The Bellwether · Tickets
- Oct 8 – San Francisco, CA — Wed 8:00 PM · The Regency Ballroom · Tickets
Kula Shaker return to the UK in February 2026 for a run of headline shows in support of their latest album, Wormslayer.
- 7th – Brighton, Concorde 2
- 8th – Cambridge, Junction
- 9th – Holmfirth, Picturedrome
- 11th – Glasgow, Old Fruitmarket
- 12th – Manchester, O2 Ritz
- 13th – London, Islington Assembly Hall
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