Eight years after Cody Okonski started Millington as a solo recording project in Albany, the six-piece closes their 2026 tour at Empire Underground on December 11 — the final confirmed date on a run that has included Vans Warped Tour 2026, Furnace Fest 2025, and a sold-out Japan headline tour. That trajectory, for a band that self-proclaims a genre called “Brass Emo,” is worth pausing on.
About the Show
Millington’s sound lives where third-wave ska-punk meets pop-punk hooks, with three horns up front making the arrangement feel less like a genre exercise and more like an event. Okonski initially wrote, recorded, and mastered everything independently, with a stated focus on crafting what he called “hook-driven releases.” Pandemic-era output — the Beatdown Generation EP (2020) and the covers album Brass Emo Vol. 1 — kept the project active before the current six-member lineup assembled for a live debut at Governors Ball 2022. That lineup: Okonski on bass and lead vocals, Alex Maloy on guitar, Nick Cavin on drums, with trombone (Chris Paul), saxophone (Pat Foxton), and trumpet (Nathaniel McKeever) out front.
What they’re bringing to Empire Underground is a set shaped by Better Safe and Sorry, the six-song EP released July 18, 2025. That release has local history: it launched at this same venue, with E.R.I.E. and The Snorts on the bill. The record represents a deliberate tonal pivot from 2023’s Welcome Home EP, which ran darker; Okonski described the shift as chasing “super high positivity… new to us… but I think somehow we pulled it off.” New Noise Magazine called track “RADIO” potentially “the best ska song in decades.” The Metroland review found the EP channeling “simpler days, cranking up the radio in your first car and hoping you don’t run out of gas cruising through the hometown you’re yearning to get out of.” For a band from Albany closing out a cross-country and international tour, that framing lands with some weight.
Millington has been touring full-time since 2023. December 11 is where this particular leg ends.
Venue & Logistics
Empire Underground sits below Empire Live on North Pearl Street in Albany, a room that opened in 2021. For a local band wrapping a tour that stretched to Japan, returning to the Capital Region to close it out here carries a certain completeness. The show starts at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets
No ticket price was available from sources at the time of publication. Tickets are available via Ticketmaster. Buy tickets