NiNi has been playing traditional Chinese folk instruments (Ruan, Liuqin, San Xian) since she was nine years old, and she has spent the past few years wiring them into heavy metal and EDM arrangements that landed her a spot on America’s Got Talent Season 19. Howie Mandel called her “NiNi Van Halen.” Simon Cowell offered something that reads less like a compliment and more like a directive: “Anyone would be mad not to immediately put you on tour with them.” On Friday, October 16, she brings the East Goes West Tour 2026 Pt 2 to Mohawk Place in Buffalo for her first performance in the city.
About the Show
The 13-date East Goes West Tour Pt 2 runs from Orlando through Chicago, and the Buffalo stop lands in the middle of a stretch through New York, Pennsylvania, and the Midwest. NiNi’s sound is built around those traditional instruments. The Ruan, she has said, is “my soul instrument,” with “a deep, warm, almost haunting tone” at its center, amplified through modern technology into metal and EDM arrangements. She also plays the DāoYù, a custom electric lute she co-designed with Blackworm Instruments through a 2022 crowdfunding campaign, built to blend the tonal qualities of the erhu and ruan. She released “Victorious,” a January 2026 single featuring Tuvan and Mongolian throat singer KUULAR, ahead of a solo album due late 2026 that brings together Asian folk and metal collaborators.
Opening is Seven Kingdoms, the DeLand, Florida power metal quartet formed in 2007. They gained prominence after supporting Blind Guardian’s 2010 North American tour and have since toured internationally with Amaranthe, Evergrey, Powerwolf, and Wind Rose. Their most recent release is the 2024 EP The Square; a new full-length, Sono Sola — funded through Kickstarter — is due in 2027 via Reigning Phoenix Music. Vocalist Sabrina Cruz on the pairing: “I personally am so excited to branch out and tour with bands of different genres, especially as unique and culturally diverse as NINI.”
Venue & Logistics
Mohawk Place, at 47 E. Mohawk St. in downtown Buffalo, is a 200-cap music club on the western New York circuit. It’s a different scale from the NBA halftime shows and European festival stages NiNi has been working, and the room’s size changes what that sound feels like up close. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets
Tickets are $22–$27 and on sale now through Eventbrite. Buy tickets