On tour
Every date the ticketer lists, worldwide · venue time
TicketsMusic · USMalcolm Todd: Do That Again Tour (MOVED TO THE SALT SHED OUTDOORS)The Salt Shed Outdoors (Fairgrounds) · Chicago
TicketsMusic · USMalcolm Todd: Do That Again TourArmory · Minneapolis
TicketsMusic · DK54 ULTRAPumpehuset · København VTicketsMusic · USMalcolm Todd: Do That Again TourThe Union · Salt Lake CityTicketsMusic · USMalcolm Todd: Do That Again TourParamount Theatre · Seattle
TicketsMusic · USMalcolm Todd: Do That Again TourFox Theater - Oakland · OaklandThe profile · researched 11 September 2026
Studio 54 in a Bloomfield bedroom: how 54 Ultra carried Latin soul to the Sonora stage
John Anthony Rodriguez recorded 54 Ultra's early singles alone in his family home in New Jersey. Three years after "Where Are You" surfaced on Discover Weekly, he has a UK top-three feature, an Interscope deal, two Coachella sets behind him and a debut album due this autumn.
Salsa in the house, beats in the bedroom
John Anthony Rodriguez was born in 2000 in Bloomfield, New Jersey, to a Puerto Rican father and a Dominican mother, and the house he grew up in ran on salsa, bachata and merengue. He has described that as the foundation everything else sits on. Piano came first, as a child. At fifteen he was making rap beats, and through high school and community college he added guitar and taught himself audio engineering.
In 2019 an internship at a recording studio turned into a job. Sitting in on other people's sessions across other people's genres is what pushed him from building tracks to singing and writing songs of his own. He still records at home in New Jersey, playing and engineering everything himself.
The name and the method
The name arrived in July 2020. "Ultra" came from Frank Ocean's nostalgia,ULTRA. The number came from Studio 54, because at the time he was listening to little but seventies and eighties pop and disco and wanted a handle that pointed at both. The first single under the name, "Ultra Violet", appeared that year, followed by "Should I Let This Go?" and "YWMFM / Sunday" in 2021 and "Sierra" in 2022.
On record 54 Ultra is a one-man operation. On stage it has been a band since 2021. Talking to WNYU's student magazine he named AJ on guitar, Duncan on bass, Sam on drums, Dave on keyboards and, on some nights, a second guitarist called Nick, and said the players take his home recordings and put their own spin on them. Being around them, he said, made him a better musician.
Where Are You, Heaven Knows and First Works
"Where Are You", released in 2023, was the song that carried the project beyond New Jersey. By his own account it was a tired, spontaneous demo, written and recorded in an hour or two between naps. It did modest local business until September, when Spotify's Discover Weekly playlists picked it up and the numbers turned. "Heaven Knows" followed in 2024, a retro soul cut that went viral and remains the song most people arrive with.
First Works, the debut EP, was self-released on 30 May 2025 on vinyl, CD, cassette and download, and Billboard included it among its best projects of the year so far. A review in Queens College's student paper that October called it polished and powerful, praised the way beats, guitars and melodies were blended, and noted how much ground it covered between dreamy and energetic. The rest of 2025 brought a steady run of singles: "Talk 2 Me", "Upside Down", "No Tengo Valor", "I Won't Go" and "Find Your Love".
Talk to You, Interscope and Coachella
The step change came in the spring of 2026. Anotr, the Dutch house duo, had invited Rodriguez to a studio retreat in upstate New York, and the disco track that came out of it, "Talk to You", was released on 6 March 2026 through their No Art label with 54 Ultra credited as featured artist. It reached number three on the UK singles chart and number one on the UK dance chart, number two in the Netherlands, number one on the WARM global dance radio chart and the top five of Billboard's Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, and has been certified gold in the UK, Italy and Greece. By early September 2026 it had passed 210 million streams on Spotify. A "54's Version" followed under his own name.
On 15 April 2026 he announced he had signed to Interscope and released "Turnaround" and "I'm Hooked" on the label, with the news timed to his Coachella debut. He played the Sonora stage on Saturday 11 April and returned for the second weekend on 18 April. He had already played All Points East in London and sold out headline rooms before the deal was signed.
The album and the autumn
In an interview published on 2 September 2026 Rodriguez said the debut album, still untitled and undated in public, is coming on Interscope and is "a very sincere collection of music, of how I felt over the last six months", with new palettes and a sonic refresh while staying familiar. He named Blood Orange as his current number one influence alongside Steve Lacy, with Fleetwood Mac, Michael Jackson, Prince and Jimi Hendrix as the earlier ones. He said he had been on the road roughly half the year, including Reading and Leeds, and that each month's shows improved on the last.
The autumn calendar has him in Europe for headline dates: Heaven in London on 8 October, Luxor in Cologne on 11 October and Santeria Toscana 31 in Milan on 18 October. Live Nation also lists him against a run of Malcolm Todd's Do That Again dates across North America in September and October, and he has an opening slot on Thundercat's Distracted AF tour, with a date at White Oak Music Hall in Houston on 7 November.
What the show is now
The band has grown with the rooms. At Coachella's second weekend he walked out with a nine-piece ensemble including trumpet, trombone, congas and bongos, and told Coachella Magazine he had wanted to bring salsa to a stage like that; the set included Héctor Lavoe's "Mi Gente". He talked about musicianship over spectacle, and said afterwards he could not believe he had seen that many happy faces, or that fans had been waiting at the barrier for him.
A headline set runs about seventy-five minutes. At the Glass House in Pomona on 16 April 2026 he went on at 9.10pm and finished at 10.25pm, playing fourteen songs and an encore. "Halo" and "Turnaround" opened, followed by an extended "Find Your Love", "No Tengo Valor", "I'm Hooked", "Talk 2 Me", "Should I Let This Go", the then-unreleased "Tell Me", "What More Can I Do", "Mi Gente", "Upside Down", "Where Are You", "Talk To You" and "Heaven Knows" to close, with "Sierra", the 2022 single, as the encore. Before "Where Are You" he asked the crowd to dedicate the song to someone, and a fan proposed to his girlfriend during it.
The show, now
A 54 Ultra headline show runs about seventy-five minutes: at the Glass House in Pomona on 16 April 2026 he played from 9.10pm to 10.25pm, fourteen songs plus an encore of "Sierra", opening with "Halo" and "Turnaround" and closing the main set with "Where Are You", the Anotr collaboration "Talk To You" and "Heaven Knows". The set mixes his own bilingual singles with Héctor Lavoe's "Mi Gente", and at Coachella's second weekend in April 2026 the band was a nine-piece with trumpet, trombone, congas and bongos. He has said he wants musicianship rather than spectacle, and that the crowds sing everything back; at Pomona a fan proposed during "Where Are You". This autumn he headlines Heaven in London on 8 October, Luxor in Cologne on 11 October and Santeria Toscana 31 in Milan on 18 October, and opens for Thundercat in Houston on 7 November.
Researched from en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · manabouttown.tv · thelineofbestfit.com · livenation.com · setlist.fm · coachellamagazine.com · theknightnews.com