ON SALE SOON
Friday, Jun 5 2026, 10:00 AM PDT

Live Nation Presents:
Jared Mattson & Ruban Nielson (of Mattson 2 & Unknown Mortal Orchestra)
Wed, 8 Jul, 8:00 PM PDT
Doors open
7:00 PM PDT
Cafe Du Nord
2174 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94114
ON SALE SOON
Friday, Jun 5 2026, 10:00 AM PDT
Description
Jared Mattson & Ruban Nielson imagined the music living in in-between places — old motels with buzzing vacancy signs, abandoned gas stations at dusk, vast parking lots lit by sodium lamps where engines idle and lives briefly overlap.
Spaces built for movement, not comfort. Bleak, anonymous, quietly human. Music that could sit inside that loneliness without trying to fix it — beauty carrying a low hum of danger underneath, calm without anesthesia bringing FEAR - the joint album from Jared Mattson of The Mattson 2 and Ruban Nielson of Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Cafe Du Nord's Preferred Viewing Available, General Admission Not Included
For any event that is listed as 18 or 21 and over, ANY ticket holder unable to present valid identification indicating that they are of age will not be admitted to this event, and will not be eligible for a refund. Any event listed as All Ages, means 6 years of age or older. ALL tickets are standing room only unless otherwise specified. If you need special accommodations, contact info@cafedunord.com.
Support acts are subject to change without refund.
Professional Cameras are not allowed without prior approval. Professional Camera defined as detachable lens or of professional grade as determined by the venue staff. When in doubt, just email us ahead of the show! We might be able to get you a Photo Pass depending on Artist’s approval.
Event Information
Age Limit
21+
eTicket Delivery
Your tickets will be e-mailed closer to the event date.

Music
Jared Mattson & Ruban Nielson
Jared Mattson & Ruban Nielson
Music
I woke up around noon, disoriented, half-dreaming. Music was playing — unfamiliar, fully formed, the kind of sound you assume belongs to someone else’s life. For a moment I thought I was still asleep, hearing music I wished I’d made.
Then it hit me: Ruban Nielson was already awake, in the studio, listening to what we’d made.
We both knew it. There was something inevitable about the music — like it hadn’t been created so much as uncovered. We listened on repeat, laughing, shaking our heads. One track brought up a shared image: an evergreen forest by a lake at sunset. Ruban suddenly looked up, eyes wide, like he’d just been handed a message.
“I’ve got the title,” he said.
American Eagle.
The name landed the same way the music had — clean, obvious, impossible to argue with. The American Dream: hot dogs, Cokes, sunset drives. We both lost it, tears in our eyes from laughing hard for minutes straight.
We swam in his pool. The conversation never stopped. The flow stayed constant, nourishing, effortless. Then Ruban said it again — the line that had already become a principle:
“Let’s make more that sound exactly like this.”
So we did.
Two days later, the record was finished.
We imagined the music living in in-between places — old motels with buzzing vacancy signs, abandoned gas stations at dusk, vast parking lots lit by sodium lamps where engines idle and lives briefly overlap. Spaces built for movement, not comfort. Bleak, anonymous, quietly human. Music that could sit inside that loneliness without trying to fix it — beauty carrying a low hum of danger underneath, calm without anesthesia.
That night, around eleven, Ruban asked if I wanted to go for a walk. He’d found an old local Palm Springs newspaper clipping — nothing online — about a Native burial ground disturbed by a cement foundation for a project that never got built. Whatever it was, it wasn’t meant to exist.
We walked through the desert in silence and conversation, at peace. The flow never left us, even as we talked about old ghosts. The past had finally lost its grip.
Back at the house, Ruban sent the music to his manager, who had just had twins — no sleep, total chaos. The idea was simple: see if the music could help.
It did.
The response came back clear and immediate. He loved it.
And just like that, we’d accidentally named the genre:
music to calm dads down.
That felt right.
FEAR - the joint album from Jared Mattson of The Mattson 2 and Ruban Nielson of Unknown Mortal Orchestra - was recorded in June of 2024. All recording and mixing took place in Palm Springs. Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios in London.
Music
Jared Mattson
Jared Mattson
Music
Music
Ruban Nielson
Ruban Nielson
Music