Philly music with XPoNential Music Festival, Alabama Shakes, Eric Church, Kali Uchis, The Lumineers, and more

This week in Philly music features a stacked XPoNential Music Festival lineup in Camden, Eric Church and Kali Uchis in South Philly, back-to-back nights with Alabama Shakes and Turnstile at the Mann Center, and the last stadium show of the season with the Lumineers and Dr. Dog at Citizens Bank Park.

On Wednesday, the free Sundown Music Series at Haddon Lake Park in South Jersey finishes off in style with Chuck Prophet and His Cumbia Shoes. San Francisco songwriter and bandleader Prophet merged his longtime band Mission Express with central California cumbia band ¡Qiensave! on last year’s Wake the Dead.

There’s a punk-rock double bill at the Fillmore on Wednesday with Canadian band Pup and Long Island songwriter Jeff Rosenstock. The acts have toured together in the past, so this trek is being billed as “A Cataclysmic Rapture of Friendshipness.”

It’s an international garage-rock romance. Singer-guitarist Flavia Couri is Brazilian. Drummer Martin Thorsen is from Denmark. Together, the couple is the Courettes, a ‘60s girl-group Wall of Sound band that is a Little Steven’s Underground Garage favorite. They’re at Kung Fu Necktie on Thursday.

Alabama Shakes singer Brittany Howard released two forward-looking solo albums with Jaime in 2019 and What Now last year, but hasn’t made music with the Shakes since 2017. The funk-soul-blues-rock powerhouse trio is back on the road, with a new song, “Another Life,” that augurs well for the future. They play the Mann Center on Thursday, with the Budos Band.

“The English language is violence, I hot-wired it,” Billy Woods raps on his new album, Golliwog. The D.C.-born, Zimbabwe-raised underground rapper, who doesn’t show his face in photographs, plays Underground Arts on Thursday. That same night, Philly jazz-R&B-soul vocalist Bilal sings at City Winery.

Self-styled “Springsteen”-loving country outlaw Eric Church headlines Xfinity Mobile Arena on Thursday He’s touring behind his new album, Evangeline vs. the Machine, which includes a cover of Tom Waits’ “Clap Hands.”

Dougie Poole has carved out his own place at the cosmic country table on three studio albums that mix quizzical philosophizing with earnest affection for a classic Nashville sound. His stripped-down live album, At Tubby’s, features a spooky heartbreak song called “Heaven Sent an Angel and We Got Stoned.” He’s at PhilaMOCA on Thursday.

Speaking of Cosmic Country: That’s the name of Daniel Donato’s band. The Atlantic City-born Nashville-based guitarist is a legit guitar hero who blends honky tonk and psychedelia. DD’s CC play not one but three consecutive nights at Ardmore Music Hall, starting Thursday, and stick around to play XPoNential in Camden on Sunday.

This year’s XPoNential fest, produced by WXPN-FM (88.5) at Wiggins Park, gets started with a cohesively curated Friday that fits right in with Dan Reed’s Funky Friday drive time radio show.

» READ MORE: Philly band Snacktime is now ‘Jason Kelce on ESPN’ famous

Headliner is War, the 1970s “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” hitmakers. It shares the bill with New Orleans’ Preservation Hall Jazz Band (founded by Pottsville, Pa., native Alan Jaffe in the 1960s), horn-heavy Philly band Snacktime, Memphis soul and blues group Southern Avenue, Philly pianist and singer Black Buttafly, and house diva Fawziyya Heart.

XPoNential on Saturday is topped by Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory, with an impressive array of songwriters, including the great English folk-rocker Richard Thompson, Nashville banjoist Molly Tuttle, and Kathleen Edwards, who has a new album, Billionaire, produced by Jason Isbell. Plus, Soccer Mommy and Tune-Yards.

Sunday at Wiggins Park is headlined by Australian guitarist and singer Courtney Barnett, along with Michigan jam band Greensky Bluegrass.

Barnett is a gifted lyricist who hasn’t released a new album with words since Things Take Time, Take Time in 2021, so let’s hope she plays some new songs. Her buddy Kurt Vile is home from the road and has been known to drop in on her shows, so be on the lookout.

Hold Steady singer Craig Finn, whose Always Been is one of the best albums of the year, is also playing, along with Spin Doctors, Michigander, and local luminaries Emily Drinker and Zinadelphia.

» READ MORE: Craig Finn has made his best ever album with Adam Granduciel of Philly’s The War On Drugs

Two bands that stretch the limits of what “punk” means play the Mann’s Skyline Stage on Friday. Headliners are Turnstile, the Baltimore band that mixes hard core punk with pop textures on their album Never Enough. Its singer Brendan Yates became the first to crowd surf on NPR Music’s Tiny Desk. The band will be joined by Philly’s Mannequin Pussy, continuing their run from 2024’s pretty and pummeling I Got Heaven.

The Lumineers plays Citizens Bank Park on Friday. Is the Denver duo of Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites, on tour for their 2025 album Automatic, really a stadium-sized band? Apparently so, though in Philly they’ll get help filling seats from local heroes Dr. Dog, joining as openers in their only announced 2025 Philly show.

Storytelling Texan songwriter James McMurtry’s most recent masterwork is The Black Dog & the Wandering Boy, and he plays World Cafe Live with Betty Soo on Friday. Hayes Carll, a Lone Star State tunesmith who takes a more bemused approach, plays Ardmore Music Hall on Sunday. His new album is We’re Only Human.

Kali Uchis’ “The Sincerely, Tour” plays Xfinity Mobile Arena on Saturday. The concert is in support of her 2025 Sincerely that was shaped by the death of her mother and birth of her first child. It follows last year’s Spanish-language album Orquídeas.

Mexican American norteño band Los Tigros del Norte play Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City on Friday, and Elvis Costello & the Imposters with Charlie Sexton’s Radio Soul! tour plays the Borgata that night.

Gary, Indiana, rapper Freddie Gibbs plays the Fillmore on Saturday along with producer the Alchemist, who he teamed with on 2020 Godfather-themed Alfredo and its 2025 sequel, Alfredo 2. The following night, that Fishtown venue will be filled by fans of Sam Fender, the British songwriter whose new album People Watching is co-produced by Adam Granduciel of the War on Drugs.

Morrissey is scheduled to play the Met Philly on Tuesday. The sardonic Smiths frontman is a notorious canceler of shows, so keep your fingers crossed. Post-rock jazz-influenced British band Maruja, whose punishing new album is Pain to Power, plays Underground Arts on Tuesday.

2026 concert dates are already being announced. Cardi B. releases her album Am I the Drama? on Friday and the New York rapper will play Xfinity Mobile Arena on April 7. Tickets go on sale Sept. 25 at 10 a.m. at CardiB.com/tour.