Alabama Shakes Turn a Small New York Room Into a Reunion

Alabama Shakes played the Soho Sessions in New York on Tuesday night, a set that leaned on I Must Be Dreaming, the band’s first album in more than a decade, and reached back for songs like “Don’t Wanna Fight” and the 2015 single “Gimme All Your Love.” Also on the list: “Sound & Color,” “Future People” and “Always Alright.”

Brittany Howard held the center of it, singing and playing guitar through a set built on close listening rather than volume. On “Gimme All Your Love” the band settled into an instrumental break that showed how quickly they had found each other again. That ease is recent. In late 2024, Howard agreed to play a benefit in Tuscaloosa and called the rest of the group. “We were gonna do, like, a little secret appearance,” she told Rolling Stone earlier this year. Rehearsing old songs they had not played in years turned into more shows, then demos, then a record.

The room fit the material. The band wrote I Must Be Dreaming thinking about the kind of intimacy a small space allows, and the Soho Sessions offered exactly that. The night was hosted in support of the Grammy Museum. “Having Alabama Shakes in this room is exactly why we created The Soho Sessions,” co-founder Greg Williamson said in a statement, adding that pairing the performance with music education made it a particular kind of evening.