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Tiny Desk Trick Or Treat: Our 5 Favorite Concerts In Costume

When it comes to bands performing at the Tiny Desk, there's dressing up, and then there's dressing up. Just in time for Halloween, we've pulled together a handy playlist starring artists whose stage wear crosses over from "outfits" to "costumes."

Naturally, we start — as all discussions should — with Neko Case in a gorilla suit, joined by a wildly attired band that included Dia De Los Muertos-masked Kelly Hogan and Dracula'd Eric Bachmann. Costumery is essential to everything Blue Man Group does, and we've got drinking cups stained with bright-blue lip-prints to show for it. Then it's on to Chicago's Mucca Pazza, whose dress included marching-band uniforms, cheerleader outfits and pom poms made of police tape. Just last week, CHAI took its place on the Tiny Desk stage (and in our hearts) while enshrouded in hooded gowns, each festooned with... well, more pom poms. And, with Halloween just about out of the way, we might as well unveil the season's first Santa Claus sighting, courtesy of the wonderful Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Happy Halloween!


Tiny Desks In This Playlist

• Neko Case's Halloween Special (read more)
• Blue Man Group (read more)
• Mucca Pazza (read more)
• CHAI (read more)
• Preservation Hall Jazz Band (read more)

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)