Tab Benoit’s approach to amplification is a small manifesto: a guitar, a cord, and a Category 5 amplifier — no effects pedals, nothing between his Telecaster and the room. That sonic choice isn’t nostalgia; it’s a statement about where he thinks the music lives. His 2026 Soul of the Swamp Tour brings that philosophy to Saratoga Springs on Sunday, December 13, at Universal Preservation Hall, with Bonerama opening, a New Orleans brass ensemble that takes an equally uncompromising position from the opposite direction: more instruments, more trombones, more of everything, and somehow the effect is the same.
About the Show
Benoit is touring behind I Hear Thunder (2024), his first studio album in 13 years and the inaugural release on Whiskey Bayou Records, his own imprint. The record debuted at number one on the Billboard Blues Chart in September 2024. Made in collaboration with guitarist Anders Osborne (who co-wrote every song and shares guitar duties throughout), the album ranges from Bayou-groove introspection to what one reviewer characterized as “arena-rock territory” on the title track. A wider palette than Benoit’s live minimalism might suggest. Critics have spent decades returning to the same reference point for his voice: Otis Redding.
Benoit has four Grammy nominations and multiple Blues Music Awards to his name, is a Louisiana Music Hall of Fame inductee, and has been at this since his 1992 debut. He tours at a pace of roughly 250 shows annually and has spent more than two decades as an outspoken advocate for Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, founding the Voice of the Wetlands nonprofit in 2004 to draw attention to the state’s ongoing coastal erosion. A performer with that kind of mileage tends to play like someone who has run out of things to prove, which tends to make for a better show.
Bonerama brings its own considerable history to the bill. Founded in 1998 by trombonists Mark Mullins and Craig Klein, the band has spent more than two decades making the trombone do things it has no particular obligation to do, blending rock, funk, soul, jazz, gospel, and blues with brass as the lead voice rather than the color. Their 2026 release So Much Love is the group’s eighth album and first in seven years, featuring guest appearances from Trombone Shorty, Ivan Neville, Cyril Neville, and Stanton Moore. The pairing makes geographic and sonic sense: Benoit and Bonerama both come from Louisiana’s musical traditions, just working from opposite ends of the room.
Venue & Logistics
Universal Preservation Hall sits on Washington Street in Saratoga Springs and is one of the more thoughtfully programmed performance spaces in the capital region. The show begins at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets
No ticket price was available from sources at the time of publication. Buy tickets through Proctor’s Collaborative.