The Salt Shed holds the cold of the river longer than the street outside does, and in the middle of September that means the room is comfortable about an hour before anywhere else in the city is. Liz Phair and Sleater-Kinney co-headlined here on September 17th, on a fourteen-date run billed as The Flannel and the Fury, with Frankie Cosmos opening.
Exile in Guyville was recorded in this city in 1993 as a track-by-track answer to a Rolling Stones album, by a woman from Winnetka whom the Chicago indie scene of the time largely patronised. Nobody in that room needed the recap.
Co-headlining is a specific arrangement and usually a compromise. This one worked because the two acts are not competing for the same thing: Phair writes songs that are embarrassed by their own feeling, and Sleater-Kinney write songs that are not embarrassed by anything.
Two Bands, One Room
Frankie Cosmos went first to a room still filling, playing short songs very quietly, which is a difficult proposition in a converted industrial shed and was the right contrast to what followed.
"Divorce Song" was the Phair moment — a song built on a conversational vocal and a guitar part that barely moves, and in a room this size it depended entirely on the crowd shutting up, which they did. "Dig Me Out" was the Sleater-Kinney moment and the loudest the night got, Corin Tucker's voice doing the thing it has done since 1997, which is to arrive like a structural problem.
The Flannel and the Fury, September 17
A Salt Plant With A PA
This building stored road salt for the Morton Salt Company from 1929, and the pile inside it was visible from the Kennedy for most of the twentieth century. It became a music venue in 2022, and the conversion kept the shed's volume rather than subdividing it, which is why the room sounds the way it does: a hard, reflective box with enough height that the reflections arrive late enough to read as space instead of mud. Guitar bands benefit. Anything with sub-bass does not.
For a bill of three guitar acts it is close to the best room in Chicago, and it is the direct beneficiary of what happened to the mid-size circuit when Pitchfork left town — the same campus that now hosts Warm Love Cool Dreams in May and took the Silver Room Block Party in July.
Tour poster, fourteen dates
From the postPhilly!!! We play Franklin Music Hall tonight at 7:30, opening for Sleater-Kinney and Liz Phair 🥰🥰
The Flannel and the Fury tour
From the postTHE FLANNEL AND THE FURY 2026 LIZ PHAIR & SLEATER-KINNEY Presale begins Wednesday, April 29 at 10am local time. Sign up at the link in bio to receive a code. A limited number of Liz Phair VIP packages will be available…
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Joshua Mellin shot the night and had the frames out by morning. A Winnetka record came home to a salt shed and filled it.
Cover image: Carrie Brownstein, left, and Corin Tucker lead Sleater-Kinney at Salt Shed in Chicago on Sept. 17, 2026. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)