Upstate New York runs on rock and roll. In any given week the region’s stages light up with arena headliners, reunited legends, rising indie acts, and the bar bands that turn a Tuesday into a night worth leaving the house for. The lawn at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the amphitheaters at Darien Lake, CMAC, and Bethel Woods, the riverfront at Artpark, and club rooms like Empire Live in Albany give touring rock a home in every corner of the state.
This page is your live, always-current guide to every rock concert on our radar across Upstate NY — classic rock and arena anthems, hard rock and metal-leaning bills, alt and indie, jam, and everything in between. Shows are listed with the soonest dates first, so the next night out is always at the top.
We cover the whole region: the Capital Region and Saratoga, Western NY and Buffalo, the Hudson Valley, Central NY and Syracuse, the Finger Lakes, the Southern Tier, and the North Country. New tours, festival lineups, and on-sale dates land here as soon as they’re announced, and we flag presales and ticket links so you can lock in seats before they’re gone.
More guides: Country Concerts in Upstate New York · Comedy Shows in Upstate New York · Hip-Hop Concerts in Upstate New York
By region: Rock Concerts in Albany & the Capital Region · Rock Concerts in Buffalo & Western NY · Rock Concerts in the Hudson Valley · Rock Concerts in Syracuse & Central NY · Rock Concerts in the Finger Lakes
Pearl Jam at Rochester War Memorial — April 7, 1994
Zappa Plays Zappa at The Egg — April 7, 2015
The J. Geils Band at Proctor’s Theatre — April 8, 1976
Red Hot Chili Peppers at Pepsi Arena — April 3, 2000
The Red Hot Chili Peppers brought the Californication Tour to a sold-out Pepsi Arena with a stacked triple bill: Muse opened, followed by the Foo Fighters, before RHCP hit the stage. The setlist leaned hard on Californication — “Around the World,” “Scar Tissue,” and “Otherside” — alongside classics like “Give It Away” and “Under the […]
Chick Corea & Friends at Palace Theatre — April 8, 1980
Foo Fighters at Pepsi Arena — April 3, 2000
Grateful Dead at Onondaga War Memorial — April 8, 1982
The Dead brought their spring 1982 East Coast tour to the Onondaga War Memorial in Syracuse — a mid-sized arena that fit the band’s early-’80s circuit perfectly. This was the Garcia-in-transition era: between studio albums, keeping the flame alive through live performance. The second set opened with a Playin’ in the Band, wove through Uncle […]
Beck, Bogert & Appice at Palace Theatre — April 1, 1973
The Bangles at JB Scott’s — April 1, 1986
Frank Zappa at RPI Fieldhouse — April 2, 1980
Frank Zappa brought his band to the RPI Fieldhouse in Troy, road-testing material in the wake of Joe’s Garage, his biting 1979 rock opera about music censorship. The lineup — Ike Willis, Ray White, Arthur Barrow, Tommy Mars, and David Logeman — was tight and fearless, drawing setlists heavy on Joe’s Garage cuts alongside staples […]