The Format's comeback year is ending the way the band began: in small rooms, with the songs turned down. mxdwn Music reported on October 13 that Nate Ruess and Sam Means will play a run of unplugged United States shows this fall, closing their year in support of Boycott Heaven, the comeback album that ended a silence of nearly two decades. antiMusic reported the same announcement with the identical date list, and The Arizona Republic reported the hometown end of the run in detail — two nights at the Nile Theater in Mesa, Arizona, a short distance from where the band's story started.
The timing gives the run its shape. mxdwn Music reported that the unplugged dates follow the band's headline performance at New York's Radio City Music Hall last week — a full-band, full-production peak — and then deliberately scale everything back down for December. It is a victory lap designed as an exhale: seven shows in club-sized rooms, ending with two hometown nights for the fans who have been there since the beginning.
The Dates
As reported by mxdwn Music and confirmed by antiMusic, the unplugged run opens December 1 in Orlando, Florida, at The Social, then moves to Savannah, Georgia, on December 2 at Victory North. The band plays Memphis, Tennessee, on December 4 at 1884 Lounge, Birmingham, Alabama, on December 6 at WorkPlay Theatre, and Oklahoma City on December 7 at Beer City Music Hall. The closing stand is December 10 and 11 at the Nile Theater in Mesa. Tickets for the run go on sale Friday at 12 p.m. local time, according to mxdwn Music.
Before December, there is one more big-room date on the calendar. mxdwn Music reported that on November 7 the band co-headlines the Hollywood Bowl with Jimmy Eat World, in a double-anniversary show: Jimmy Eat World marks 25 years of Bleed American, and The Format marks 20 years of Dog Problems, the 2006 album that became the band's defining statement before its long hiatus. The Arizona Republic reported the same Hollywood Bowl pairing. So the fall offers Arizona's two great emo-era exports — Mesa's own Jimmy Eat World lineage and The Format — sharing one of American music's most famous stages, weeks before Ruess and Means bring the whole enterprise home to a theater in Mesa.
The Album Behind the Run
Boycott Heaven arrived in January, according to Consequence's tour coverage, and both mxdwn Music and antiMusic describe it the same way: The Format's first studio album in nearly two decades, produced by Brendan O'Brien, who also played bass on the record, with Matt Chamberlain on drums. The Arizona Republic reported that the album reconnects Ruess and Means with the alternative rock, grunge and power-pop records that inspired them as teenagers in Arizona — which makes the December routing read like the album's themes staged as a tour: big rooms conquered, then the whole thing brought back to the scale where those teenage influences were first absorbed.
The comeback's scale is easy to understate if you only remember the hiatus. The Arizona Republic reported that the band's return to full-band performance came with a sold-out show at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix in September 2025, a room holding close to fifteen thousand people, and that in January the band marked the album's release with stripped-down hometown performances in Phoenix record-store settings. Ruess, as The Arizona Republic reported, has described this period as the most fun he has had — two old friends making music together again, with the album offered partly as a happy distraction in a heavy moment. The unplugged format also fits the band's community streak: The Republic noted their Saturdays In The Park series of free, all-ages gatherings with acoustic performances in tour cities, built around local organizations.
Why Unplugged Suits This Band
Some reunions are nostalgia products; the audience wants the old songs played the old way, and the band obliges. The Format's catalog has always worked differently. Ruess's writing — theatrical, piano-driven, built on melodies that survive arrangement changes — was unplugged-friendly long before unplugged became this tour's selling point, and Means's role as the band's musical anchor translates naturally to a small stage. A December run through rooms like The Social in Orlando and 1884 Lounge in Memphis is not a downgrade from Radio City. It is the other half of the same argument: that these songs hold a room at any volume.
Practical notes for fans: the Friday on-sale at noon local will move quickly for Mesa especially, where two nights at the Nile Theater are the band's first hometown performances since the January album-release shows, according to The Arizona Republic. Anyone planning around the Hollywood Bowl date should treat November 7 as the fall's centerpiece and December as the connoisseur's version. Either way, the year that began with a first album in nearly twenty years ends with its authors on a small stage in their hometown, playing quietly — which, for this band, has never meant playing small. More tour news is on our Music front, the day's headlines are on the news front, show coverage continues on our Podcasts front, and this cycle's other music stories include Parker McCollum's surprise acoustic album.
