The Strokes played two Reality Awaits songs on SNL on Nov. 7. Here is what they played, when the album came out and the next U.S. dates.
The Strokes played two songs from Reality Awaits on Saturday Night Live on Nov. 7, 2026, opening with "Lonely in the Future" and closing with "Going Shopping," according to Rolling Stone. It was the band's fifth musical guest spot on the show and the first since 2020. If you missed it, the performances are on SNL's YouTube channel, and the next chance to see the band live in the U.S. is a festival date in February.
What did The Strokes play on SNL?
Rolling Stone reports the band opened with "Lonely in the Future" and later played "Going Shopping." Actor Walton Goggins, who starred in the song's music video, joined in on bongo drums for the second one, per the same report. The band last appeared on the show in 2020 to promote The New Abnormal.
Rolling Stone links the full "Lonely in the Future" performance on the show's YouTube channel. We have not watched the clips ourselves, so we can't speak to how they sounded on air.
When did Reality Awaits come out, and who made it?
Reality Awaits is the band's seventh studio album. It came out July 24, 2026, on RCA and Cult Records, according to its Wikipedia entry, and Rolling Stone ran its review a day earlier. Rick Rubin produced it. Rolling Stone describes it as a nine-track album, and says recording began in 2022 in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, with more work at Rubin's Southern California studios, Shangri-La and The Mansion.
Rolling Stone quotes Rubin from an October 2022 appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, where he described setting the band up outdoors on a mountaintop as if they were playing "a concert for the ocean." Guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. called the album his favorite, per the same report. Those are their words, and we can't check them.
Where can you see The Strokes in the U.S. next?
Not soon. JamBase lists the band's next dates as a run of festival shows in South America from Nov. 20 to Dec. 5, followed by Australia in February. Billboard reported the four Australian dates for Feb. 13, 16, 17 and 20, 2027.
In the U.S., JamBase shows two 2027 dates: Innings Festival in Tempe, Arizona, on Feb. 27, and Kilby Block Party in Salt Lake City on May 15. The Innings Festival website says the festival runs Feb. 26 to 28 at Tempe Beach Park and Arts Park, and says tickets are on sale. We could not see the Strokes named on the festival's own pages, so treat the JamBase listing as unconfirmed until the festivals post their lineups. Check each festival's own site before you buy tickets.
What should you do now?
If you want to catch up before any tickets go on sale, here is the short path: watch the two SNL clips, then start with the album's singles, "Going Shopping" and "Falling Out of Love." Rolling Stone's Australian site names both as recent singles from the record.
If you only have time for one clip, pick "Lonely in the Future," since it was the band's opening number and the one Rolling Stone embedded. Tickets for the festival dates are sold by the festivals, not the band, so prices and presales will differ from a normal tour.
Our take: an SNL slot four months after an album drops is the kind of promotion a band books when it has more touring on the horizon. That is a guess, not a report, and nothing announced so far says a bigger U.S. tour is coming. The festival listings are the only concrete U.S. dates, so that is where we would watch.
That same night's show also had comedian Druski hosting his first episode, which we covered separately.
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Picture credit: Photo: Raph_PH (CC BY 2.0)
