The Simpsons Halloween

Halloween livestreams - a guide to the spooky virtual concerts you can watch this weekend

Halloween is on a Saturday this year, it’ll be the first full moon on Halloween in all US time zones in 76 years (and a rare blue moon), and daylight savings time is making Halloween night one hour longer than usual, and it’s very painful that the pandemic has stopped us from celebrating it the way we normally would. There are of course no Halloween concerts this year, but at least there are plenty of spooky livestreams from Thursday (10/29) through Halloween night to keep you entertained. We hope you tune into the BrooklynVegan-presented Teenage Halloween stream on 10/30 (more on that below), but that’s just one of many cool streams you can watch this weekend. We’ve rounded up some of the spookiest.

Saturday, October 31

The Dresden Dolls celebrate their 20th anniversary by streaming Return to Paradise, filmed on the last show of their three-night run at The Paradise Rock Club in November of 2017, starting at 12 AM ET on Vimeo. and Tickets are on sale now.

The Dresden Dolls - Return to Paradise

World/Inferno Friendship Society are moving their annual “Hallowmas” show online, and tickets are on sale now. “Please note that this is not a livestream of a World/Inferno show but it IS a proper, virtual commemoration of Hallowmas,” they write, “and we need your participation if we are to raise the Pumpkin, even remotely. Festivities will kick off at midnight,” they add, “although the bulk of the action will take place on Halloween around 5 pm.”

World/Inferno Friendship Society Hallowmas

Brazilian drag superstar Pabllo Vittar is hosting an 18-hour marathon virtual Halloween club night on Twitch, starting at 8 AM ET and featuring Christine and The Queens, Kelly Lee Owens, Romy of The xx, Purity Ring, Alice Glass, Ela Minus, and more.

Pabllo Vittar Halloween flyer

Mixcloud’s streaming series ‘Tickets’ continues with a set from Flying Lotus and “select Brainfeeder guests,” broadcast three times throughout the day, at 8 AM ET, 5 PM ET and 12 AM ET. Tickets are on sale now.

Flying Lotus Mixcloud

Usually Halloween weekend means The Fest, but since that couldn’t happen this year, in its place will be “The Fest That Never Was”, a STACKED livestream festival starting at 12 PM ET on Facebook and Twitch, featuring Answering Machine, awakebutstillinbed, Billy Liar, Catbite, Cold Wrecks, Dikembe, Dog Party, Erica Freas, Flying Raccoon Suit, Frank Turner, Get Married, Jon Snodgrass, Late Bloomer, Long Neck, Lost in Society, MakeWar, Night Witch, Oceanator, Roger Harvey, Sarchasm, Souvenirs, Teenage Halloween, The Casket Lottery, The Pauses, The World/Inferno Friendship Society, Timeshares, War on Women, Weakened Friends, Worriers, Zeta, and more.

The Fest Halloween Virtual Fest

The Fest That Never Was isn’t the only stacked punk livestream this weekend. Ratboys present a 25-hour Halloween Telethon on Twitch, starting at 1 PM ET, with Adult Mom, Anjimile, Avery Springer of Retirement Party, Bad Bad Hats, Bartees Strange, Chris Farren, Conor Murphy of Foxing, Deep Sea Diver, Diet Cig, Disq, Ellis, Illuminati Hotties, Laura Stevenson, Mint Green, Oceanator, Prince Daddy and the Hyena, Rosie Tucker, Sinai Vessel, Skatune Network, Slingshot Dakota, The Beths, Why Bonnie, Wild Pink and more. Proceeds go to The Equal Justice Initiative and Girls Rock! Chicago.

Update: watch the archived stream HERE.

Ratboys Halloween Telethon

Mr. Bungle — original members Mike Patton, Trey Spruance and Trevor Dunn, plus Scott Ian (Anthrax, S.O.D.) and Dave Lombardo (Slayer) — reunited earlier this year for real-life shows before the pandemic began, and 10/30 sees the release of The Raging Wrath Of The Easter Bunny Demo, the professionally re-recorded version of their thrashy 1986 demo that they performed on that tour. Now they’re set to celebrate Halloween with a “virtual live concert experience,” “The Night They Came Home!” at 3 PM ET. Tickets and merch are on sale now.

Mr. Bungle The Night They Came Home livestream

Code Orange‘s two full-band livestreams this year have both been genuinely great, so it’s exciting news that they’re now doing a third. It’s called “BACK INSIDE THE GLASS,” and a press release calls it “an all-immersive environmental experience placing Code Orange’s live show at the center of awe-inspiring virtual landscapes.” It’ll also feature new sets by Machine Girl, Year Of The Knife (playing their recently-released album Internal Incarceration in full) and Jesus Piece, all three of whom were supposed to tour with Code Orange this year.

It goes down on Halloween at 4 PM ET, and like Code Orange’s recent MTV Unplugged-style livestream did, this will begin with a Mudbangers Ball pre-show at 3 PM ET, hosted by former Headbangers Ball host Riki Rachtman. (The first Mudbangers Ball was genuinely cool, so we recommend catching this one too.) Tickets are on sale.

Code Orange

Devin Townsend does a “Rarities By Request” virtual set at 4 PM ET on Stageit. Tickets are on sale, and you can vote for what songs you’d like to hear.

Devin Townsend Halloween

Saint Vitus Bar is streaming a Halloween punk covers livestream at 5 PM ET, with members of Anasazi, Warthog, Blu Anxxiety, L.O.T.I.O.N. MNC, Pawns, Firewalker, Conspiracy, Savage Heads, Suck Lords, Church Clothes, Anatomy, Conduit, Mati, Olor A Muerte, Subversive Rite, Extended Hell, Vaxine, Scalple, Terrorist, Hank Wood & the Hammerheads, Sister Anne, Phane, Shadowland, HÜSTLER, Devils Dildo, the Otherman, Posterboy 2000 and more performing the music of The Stooges, TSOL, The Damned, Cocteau Twins, Poison Idea, Void, Ramones, Misfits, Las Vulpes and more. Tickets are on sale now.

St. Vitus Bar Halloween

Steel Panther stream a Halloween set from The Viper Room at 5 PM ET, and Eagles of Death Metal’s Jesse Hughes will join them. Tickets are on sale now.

PC Music Halloween special “Pop Crypt” streams at 5 PM ET on Twitch, featuring Alice Longyu Gao, Balming Tiger, Baauer, Cecile Believe, Death Sim, DJ Fuck, GRRL, Himera, Kamixlo, QUALIATIK, Riley the Musician, Shigecki, Standard Operating Procedure, That Kid, umru, and William Crooks. Tickets are on sale now.

PC Music Pop Crypt

Rolling Loud is doing another “Loud Stream,” this time for Halloween, on October 30 & 31 from 6 PM to midnight ET each day on Twitch. Saturday features Trippie Redd, Lil Pump, The Kid Laroi, $not, J.I., BIA, Robb Bank$, Danny Towers, 645AR, Sukihana, and Mario Judah.

Rolling Loud Halloween Saturday

Disposable America streams a virtual Halloween party, featuring bands doing cover sets, at 7 PM ET on Twitch. The lineup includes Oceanator (covering Elliott Smith), Horse Jumper of Love (covering Gram Parsons), Cave People (covering Cyndi Lauper), and more, and proceeds benefit bail funds.

Disposable America Halloween party

For this month’s “Dinner And A Movie” broadcast, Phish stream three previous “Costume Sets”: 2014 in Las Vegas, NV, when they played Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House; 1996 at The Omni in Atlanta, GA, when they played Talking Heads’ Remain in Light, and 2018 in Las Vegas, when they played a fictional album, I rokk, by fictional band Kasvot Växt. Watch at 8:30 PM ET on LivePhish and YouTube.

Phish Dinner and a Movie Halloween

Animal Collective celebrate the 10th anniversary of ODDSAC with a streaming party at 9 PM ET on Nugs.tv. In addition to a screening of the film, there will be a “welcome set” by Geologist, DJ sets from Avey Tare, Deakin, and Panda Bear, cast and crew interviews, and a Q&A with director Danny Perez. Tickets are on sale now.

animal collective oddsac halloween livestream event

J Balvin headlines a virtual Halloween party in Fortnite’s Party Royale island at 9 PM ET; it’ll also be simulcast on the Houseparty app.

J Balvin Fortnite Halloween

House of Nod’s Halloween Special streams at 9 PM ET as part of Baby’s All Right’s Baby TV streaming series, with Japanese Breakfast, Lexie, Gabby’s World, The Dead Elvi, Slight Of, and The Glow. Tickets are on sale now.

House of Nod Baby TV Halloween

Death Valley Girls stream a show at 9 PM ET on Noonchorus, and tickets are on sale now.

Death Valley Girls Halloween

Circuit des Yeux is streaming a “Sad Song” covers set from Constellation Chicago at 9:30 PM ET on YouTube. “Here is a set of 8 cover songs, songs that folks who enjoy my music have requested me to perform over the years,” Haley Fohr writes. “I made a 9 ft dress for the occasion. I hope you can remember me as ‘tall’ in this time, despite how small I may feel.” Tickets are on sale now.

Circuit des Yeux Halloween

A Rocky Horror Picture Show livestream benefitting the Democratic Party of Wisconsin streams at 10 PM ET featuring cast members Tim Curry, Barry Bostwick, and Nell Campbell, as well as Wilmer Valderrama, Lance Bass, Rosario Dawson, Jason George, Jason Alexander, and David Arquette, and performances from The Dresden Dolls, Miss Peppermint, Rachel Bloom, and more. Tickets are on sale now.

Rocky Horror Wisconsin Democrats

Denton, TX emo band Record Setter tell Stereogum that they’ll celebrate their new album I Owe You Nothing (due 11/16 via Topshelf) with a release party on Twitch that “will feature performances from a number of bands interspersed by the members of Record Setter playing MC for the night via webcam, all leading up to the first playback of [the album].”

PREVIOUSLY:

Thursday, October 29

A No Earbuds takeover of The Alternative’s Twitch streams at 7 PM ET, with a stacked lineup of indie/emo artists including Kississippi, Bartees Strange, Lake Saint Daniel, Sinai Vessel, The Big Easy, and Joe Vann of From Indian Lakes, plus a live AMA with Sarah Tudzin of Illuminati Hotties.

No Earbuds Takeover of The Alternative's Twitch

Spooky podcast Welcome to Night Vale streams a “Ghost Stories” Halloween special at 8 PM ET on Noonchorus. Tickets are on sale now.

The Get Up Kids celebrate their 25th anniversary by streaming a show at 8:30 PM ET. Tickets are on sale now.

The Get Up Kids 25th Anniversary

Okkervil River will do their first livestream show, a virtual “Rarities & Requests” set on Noonchorus at 9 PM ET. “We never did a ‘just yelling them out’ approach because that’s chaotic and tends to reward the most extroverted and the drunkest audience members (and there’s only so many times you can do ‘Freebird’),” Will Sheff recently told Rolling Stone. “So we have people submit requests beforehand and we give them three choices, which get weighed differently. With this streaming show, there’s an added filter in the voting system, which is that votes from towns we’ve never played before — including places all over the world — are getting weighted more heavily in order to give people who have never seen a Rarities & Requests show before more of a voice.”

Tickets are on sale now.

Okkervil River Rarities and Requests

This one’s not explicitly Halloween-themed, but it’s a got a creepy double bill that’s sure to put you in the spirit. Nothing play a virtual release show for their new album The Great Dismal, featuring collaborations with artists like filmmakers Mike Martinez and Tyler Wray of Everything Is Stories, projectionist Ricardo Rivera of Klip Collective, and videographer Frank Huang, and with Full of Hell as a special guest. It starts at 9 PM ET, and tickets are on sale now.

Nothing The Great Dismal Livestream

Mike Krol‘s Halloween “Deadstream” airs on Noonchorus at 9 PM ET, and tickets. Mike calls it “MY FIRST (AND PROBABLY LAST) VIRTUAL CONCERT EXPERIENCE!!! Expect everything you’ve come to love/hate from my touring live show (costumes, strobe lights, smoke machines, distortion, mistakes, comedy) but from the comfort of your living room! I will be performing deep cuts and reworking ‘fan favorites’ with a drum machine, 4-track, and semi-full backing band… all while a SPOOKY HALLOWEEN STORY unfolds! Is it a concert, or is it a short horror film? OR is it another attempt for unemployed musicians to make money?? There’s only one way to find out.”

Mike Krol Halloween Deadstream

Devil’s Dildo, aka “Satanic twins DeeDee and Debbie Dildo,” do a spooky DJ set at 10 PM ET as part of Baby’s All Right’s Baby TV streaming series. Tickets are on sale now.

Friday, October 30

Reunited punk greats The Distillers are hard at work on their first album since 2003, but first they’re reissuing their self-titled debut for its 20th anniversary. The same day the reissue comes out, and timed with Halloween, the band will play a five-song acoustic set and do a Q&A at 3 PM ET. You have to be a member of the band’s Revenant fan club to watch, and the stream is free if you’re a paying Red Carpet member or $10 if you’re a free Rebellion member. More info here.

Distillers

The Knife celebrate their 20th anniversary with a stream of their Coachella 2014 performance, part of their Shaking the Habitual tour, and a DJ set from Olof Dreijer, at 3:20 PM ET on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter.

The Knife 20 Year Anniversary

Puscifer celebrate their new album Existential Reckoning with a stream from the Arizona desert. Existential Reckoning: Live at Arcosanti airs at 6 PM ET, and tickets are on sale now. It’ll be available on-demand for 72 hours after its initial streaming.

“If you’re not familiar with Arcosanti, I highly recommend that you look it up,” Maynard James Keenan says. “It’s one of a long list of examples of architects, artists, actors, musicians, writers, and poets. People who are not necessarily from Arizona but came here and found that creative tick that burrows under your skin here, something that sets you in a motion to respond to this, what I consider to be equal parts inspirational and hostile, environment. It’s not easy to survive here. There’s already been a dust devil that’s whipped through here, rattlesnakes, crazy red ants outside of my sleeping quarters which tried to consume my dog. We feel like we’re on the edge of the world. Imagine if you were an extra-terrestrial traveler and you landed in the Southwest and wanted to assume an identity here and blend in, this would probably be a good spot to do that.”

Puscifer Livestream

A Heckdang Halloween cover show streams on Twitch at 6 PM ET, with a pretty great lineup that includes Heckdang (covering PUP), Dikembe (covering Fugazi), Gilt (covering My Chemical Romance), Oceanator (covering Green Day), Tiny Blue Ghost (covering Death Cab for Cutie), Mint Green (covering Phoebe Bridgers), and Get Tuff (covering Cobra Starship).

Heckdang Halloween

Rolling Loud is doing another virtual “Loud Stream,” this time for Halloween, on October 30 & 31 from 6 PM to midnight ET each day on Twitch. Friday features Gunna, Young Dolph, Iann Dior, K Camp, Young Nudy, Toosii, Coi Leray, Pi’erre Bourne, Slimelife Shawty, Tes X, and Rubi Rose.

Rolling Loud Halloween Friday

Long Neck‘s “Around the Campfire” variety show series streams a Mischief Night party at 7 PM ET, with Speedy Ortiz/Sad13’s Sadie Dupuis (doing a poetry reading), The Goodbye Party, Snakeskin and Long Neck. RSVP to watch.

NJ punks Teenage Halloween‘s self-titled debut album on Don Giovanni is one of our favorite punk debuts of the year so far, so we’re very excited to be teaming up with the band to present their album release livestream.

Dubbed “Hallowstream” (naturally), it goes down on Mischief Night, October 30, on the Don Giovanni YouTube page. It’s being recorded and filmed by RBBC Radio and it’ll feature an opening set by fellow NJ artist Little Hag at 7:30 PM ET followed by Teenage Halloween at 8 PM. It’s free to watch, but Teenage Halloween are taking donations via Venmo (@teenagehalloween), and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Black & Pink, “an open family of LGBTQ prisoners and ‘free world’ allies who support each other.”

Teenage Halloween’s album also gets its vinyl and cassette release this same day. More info HERE.

Teenage Hallowstream

It’s not Halloween without a GWAR show, and this year you’ll be able to experience one from your own home. They’re playing their most classic, sophomore album, Scumdogs of the Universe in full for an “uncensored” livestream, Scumdogs XXX Live, at 8 PM ET. Tickets are on sale now.

“We always wanted to do a concert without an audience in the room,” Blōthar the Berserker says. “The audience is always the worst part. Well, that and the fact that we’re constantly being attacked by a bunch of assholes while we try to get through a set. Man, I hope none of those old school dicks show up to rain on our glorious parade.”

Bring your own fake blood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp_opFEf4-I&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=GWAR

Almost every Halloween, The Wonder Years dress up as another band and cover their songs for their Occasionally Annual Halloween Extravaganza. This year, the modern-day pop punk greats will take on one of the giants of the genre, blink-182. The six-piece Wonder Years will split up into two three-piece bands for dueling sets, from North Jersey’s Ruby Stage at 8 PM ET.

Tickets are on sale. More info here.

Also, Wonder Years frontman Dan Campbell recently spoke to blink-182’s Mark Hoppus on Mark’s Apple Music show.

Wonder Years blink-182

The Grateful Dead were always a band known for doing holiday shows, and Halloween was no exception. To celebrate this year, they’re bringing back their “Shakedown Stream” series with a broadcast of their Dead Ahead concert film, featuring footage from their October 30 and 31, 1980 shows at Radio City Music Hall. That goes down at 8 PM ET on YouTube.

The Grateful Dead Shakedown Stream Halloween

The Bronx and Mariachi el Bronx stream the Halloween Dead Stream at 8 PM ET. Tickets are on sale now.

The Bronx Halloween Dead Stream

Like GWAR, The Aquabats are always in costume anyway, which makes them a perfect band to spend Halloween with. This year, they’ll stream a “Kooky Spooky Halloween Party” at 9 PM ET on Veeps, and tickets are on sale now.

The Aquabats Halloween Party

Ska-punk greats The Suicide Machines returned this year with their first album in 15 years, Revolution Spring (Fat Wreck Chords), and it’s not just a good comeback but one of the best punk albums of the year so far in any punk subgenre. They obviously haven’t been able to do live shows in support of it, but they’re doing a livestream at 9 PM on their YouTube with about an hour-long show. They say it “may very likely be our only ‘live’ undead offering for the remainder of this wretched year of our lord satan, 2020.”

Sally Can’t Dance’s annual tribute to The Cramps streams at 9 PM ET, hosted by Jonathan Toubin and featuring Kid Congo, Jim Jones, Steve Wynn, Kathy Valentine (The Go-Go’s), LA Witch, Don Fleming (B.A.L.L.⁠), Bebe Buell and the Scent, and more. Tickets are on sale now.

Sally Can't Dance Livestream

“Come As You Aren’t,” a Halloween concert from Starcrawler, streams from The Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles at 9 PM ET. Tickets are on sale now.

Joel Hodgson‘s second annual Puppet Camp streams at 9 PM ET on Facebook and YouTube with two new original Mystery Science Theater 3000 shorts, “A Busy Day At The County Fair” and “Behind The Scenes At The Supermarket,” appearances from Puddles Pity Party, Toiley T. Paper, Wayne White, and more. Proceeds go to Minneapolis-based Native American youth organization MIGIZI.

joel-hodgson-puppet camp

Ska pioneers The Skatalites (still with founding vocalist Doreen Shaffer) perform from NYC’s Sony Hall at 9:30 PM ET for their “Skalloween Virtual World Tour,” and only livestream of 2020. Tickets are on sale now. The description reads:

Friday October 30th The Skatalites will perform onstage from Sony Hall and broadcast LIVE using multiple cameras and pro audio & lighting for the best online concert experience you’ve seen yet! This ain’t no “live from my living room” deal. Skank to your favorite ska classics, while chatting together with fans from around the world, all in beautiful HIGH DEFINITION and from the comfort of your living room!

There may even be a few surprises in store for this once-in-a-lifetime event. Start your Skalloween weekend in style with the legendary Skatalites!

Skatalites Halloween

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