How Does a Metal Band Get to Carnegie Hall?

Some poor tourist once stopped me on the street and asked how to get to Carnegie Hall. Not even kidding; it ACTUALLY HAPPENED. I was so taken and flabbergasted that I totally froze up, panicked, and muttered something about “2 blocks that way” while wildly gesticulating no direction in particular. I completely blew it! A once in a lifetime opportunity! I’m still kicking myself over a decade later. Don’t worry, though, when a car rental place didn’t have the car I’d reserved several years ago, I launched into full-on Seinfeld mode; “You know how to TAKE the reservation, you just don’t know how to HOLD the reservation…”

ANYWAY, if you happen to be in midtown Manhattan this Christmas Eve and some social misfit dressed in all black stops you on the street, don’t blow it like I did: there’s a metal band playing at Carnegie Hall! Mongolian Folk metal outfit Tengger Cavalry — who blend the nomadic music tradition of Central Asia with metal — will be giving a special performance at a very famous venue that’s never hosted a metal band before. This set will be unplugged and will feature the use of Mongolian horse-head fiddle Morin Khuur, Mongolian flute, Tibetan horn, Mongolian guitar (Tovshuur) and other instruments native to the central-Asian region.

The set will be part of the Mongolian Nomadic Folk Music Concert on December 24th; tickets here for just $25-$35. Stream Tengger Cavalary’s latest album Blood Sacrifice Shaman on Bandcamp. Watch some footage of the band rehearsing below via Gear Gods.