Khalid comes back to Texas on Friday, June 19 — the “It’s Always Summer Somewhere Tour” rolling into Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park for the second of two consecutive Texas nights on a 25-city North American run. It’s his first major headlining tour in six years, and El Paso still claims him.
About Khalid
Born Khalid Donnel Robinson in El Paso, he was a teenager when “Location” started moving on SoundCloud in 2016 — a quiet, assured piece of R&B that arrived without announcement and didn’t need one. The debut album American Teen followed in 2017, went four-times platinum, and “Location” eventually certified diamond. His sophomore album Free Spirit opened at number one on the Billboard 200. Along the way: multiple Grammy nominations including Best New Artist in 2018, and Best New Artist honors at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.
What Khalid does is emotional R&B built on specificity. He doesn’t reach for the mythic. He writes close-in, from the actual experience of being young and uncertain — and the El Paso plainness of it is part of the sound. El Paso sits at the western edge of the state, closer to New Mexico than to anything else in Texas, and there’s an openness in Khalid’s writing that isn’t Houston or Austin; it’s the flat, dry horizon of the border city. He’s stayed precise about that even as the records got bigger.
The new album, after the sun goes down, is described as a new chapter — themes of love, self-discovery, and a sense of freedom, with this tour as the live argument for it. Special guest Lauv, the singer-songwriter known for the platinum-certified “I Like Me Better,” joins Khalid at every date on the run.
Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park
Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park is a 5,000-capacity outdoor amphitheater in downtown Austin at 1401 Trinity St. It’s one of the Austin market’s main stops for mid-sized touring acts — right-sized for a Khalid show at this stage, with room to breathe that a club date wouldn’t give you. Doors at 6:30 PM, show at 7:30 PM.
Tickets
Tickets are available via Ticketmaster. The Texas run closes here — Irving on June 17, Houston on June 18 — before the tour turns toward Phoenix and California. Get tickets for the Austin date.