Tommy Stinson, the 60-year-old bassist who once anchored The Replacements and Guns N' Roses, is capping off a four-day run of shows with a Halloween night party at Hudson's Park Theater, where he says the vibe will be less concert and more neighborhood costume bash.
Stinson and his band Cowboys in the Campfire are set to play the Warren Street venue on Saturday, Halloween, according to The Daily Gazette. The show is the final stop in a four-day mini-tour, with Cowboys in the Campfire having played shows in Pittsburgh and Brooklyn on the three nights before the Hudson performance, per the same report. Stinson told the paper the Park Theater sits within walking distance of his home, making the gig something of a hometown wrap-up to the run.
Doors for Saturday's show start at 8 p.m., Stinson said, and he described the evening as more of a party than a traditional show or concert. The event will feature a costume contest, and Stinson said children can get in free of charge. General admission tickets for adults are listed online at $32.50 each. Stinson also said he and the band will probably give away restaurant gift certificates, merchandise and records donated by others as part of the night's festivities.
A Career That Started at 11
Stinson's musical resume stretches back decades before he ever settled in Hudson. He joined The Replacements as an 11-year-old bassist in 1978, and the band went on to release seven studio albums over the following decade-plus. Rolling Stone has described Stinson as having launched his career as the band's bass-playing enfant sauvage. He later became a member of Guns N' Roses for over a decade starting in 1998, touring and playing on the band's long-gestating 2008 album Chinese Democracy. The Berkshire Edge has summed up that dual legacy simply, noting that Stinson is a founding member of The Replacements and also the bassist for Guns N' Roses.
Stinson is now a Hudson-based musician originally from Minnesota, and his current project is Cowboys in the Campfire, a trio he leads alongside Chip Roberts and Michael “Chops” LaConte, according to the CREATE Council on the Arts. The band's debut album, WRONGER, has backed a run of tour dates that reflect how steadily Stinson has kept working: he had 10 dates across Midwest locations in August and 15 solo dates spanning Washington, D.C., East Tennessee and Orlando in September, according to The Daily Gazette.
Roots in Hudson's Live Music Scene
Stinson's ties to the Park Theater building go back further than this weekend's bill. Rural Intelligence reports that Stinson and his band have performed at the venue on or around Halloween every year since 2023, when the theater's live programming increased substantially — a shift that turned the 1921 movie house at 723 Warren Street into a space hosting performances every week. Before that expansion, the theater had hosted live music on the second Saturday of every month beginning in 2021, per the same outlet.
Stinson's connection to Hudson stretches back even further than the venue's recent growth. The Times Union described him as a new resident of the city in a January 2012 story, while Rolling Stone has reported that he settled into a large, colonial-looking house with Tudor-style arches in 2010. The Times Union's reporting from that period also noted Hudson's broader creative expansion during the recession years, including new vinyl stores, a musical-instrument shop and a recording studio, and pointed to other musicians drawn to the area, including Meshell Ndegeocello and Melissa Auf der Maur.
Why He's Still Doing This
Stinson has talked openly about what keeps him touring and recording decades into his career. He told The Berkshire Edge that artists today can make and sell records independently online, rather than waiting on a record industry to decide what counts as musically cool. Per The Daily Gazette, he has said he feels fortunate to still perform and make a living from music, and he believes art and music carry particular weight in the current social and political climate. He has also pushed back on the idea that artificial intelligence could replace music's emotional pull for listeners, according to the same report.
That philosophy seems to fit the tone he's setting for Saturday's show. Rather than a straight concert, Stinson is framing the Halloween date at Park Theater as a party for the neighborhood — costumes, giveaways and all — a fitting close to a run that took Cowboys in the Campfire from Pittsburgh and Brooklyn stages back to the town Stinson now calls home.
