MarcLo performing during the Ugly Tour at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas on October 28, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)
For MarcLo, stepping onto an arena stage is less an introduction to the music business than an introduction to the person who has spent years working behind some of its biggest songs. The singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist comes to Moody Center in Austin on October 28 as part of Teddy Swims' The UGLY Tour, bringing a solo career that is still relatively new despite a résumé stretching across more than a decade of pop, R&B and dance music.
MarcLo is the performing name of Marcus Lomax, a South Florida native now based in Los Angeles. Music was part of his life early, including playing keyboards and bass in his father's church, while influences ranging from Stevie Wonder and Outkast to Pharrell Williams helped shape an approach that never stayed comfortably inside a single genre.
Long before most listeners knew MarcLo as a recording artist, they had probably heard something he helped create. As a member of songwriting and production collective The Monsters & Strangerz, Lomax developed a career writing and producing for artists across pop, R&B, electronic music and beyond. His credits include work connected to Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa, Ellie Goulding, Juice WRLD, Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, 5 Seconds of Summer, Nick Jonas, Zedd and many others.
One of the biggest was The Middle, the 2018 hit by Zedd, Maren Morris and Grey. MarcLo was among the song's writers and producers, helping create a recording that became a global pop and electronic crossover and earned Grammy nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.
His songwriting fingerprints also appear on Prisoner by Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa, Hate Me by Ellie Goulding and Juice WRLD and Levels by Nick Jonas. That history gives his current live show an unusual advantage. When MarcLo performs songs originally associated with other artists, he is often not simply choosing a familiar cover. He is revisiting music he helped build.
That idea has become one of the most interesting parts of his UGLY Tour set. Current performances have regularly included The Middle alongside Body on Me, Levels and Teddy Swims' Your Kind of Crazy. Rather than separating his years as a songwriter from his newer work as a solo artist, the set places both careers next to each other.
The Teddy Swims connection is particularly natural. MarcLo has songwriting credits with Swims, including Your Kind of Crazy, and the two have continued working within the same musical circle. Opening Swims' arena tour gives MarcLo an opportunity to present his own voice to an audience that may already know his writing without realizing who was behind it.
The bigger shift came in 2026 with 11 DAYS, MarcLo's debut album. He created the project during an unexpected 11-day period at home in January 2025 while Los Angeles was dealing with devastating wildfires and poor air quality. Working with a relatively simple collection of instruments and equipment, he set himself the goal of turning whatever he created during those days into a complete project.
The resulting album moves through R&B and soul while allowing traces of jazz, pop, gospel, hip-hop and other styles into the arrangements. MarcLo has described the purpose behind the record in unusually straightforward terms. Rather than using a difficult period to make something equally bleak, he wanted to create music that could offer people a sense of optimism and connection.
Songs including Haze, September Baby, Interest, Zoom Out, Marvel, Sopranos Ending and ONS have become the backbone of his current arena set. The sequencing has remained remarkably consistent across recent stops, beginning with the brief TFMH and Haze before working through both the album and the better-known songs MarcLo helped create for other performers.
That structure makes sense for someone making the difficult transition from songwriter to frontman. An arena audience may not recognize September Baby or Marvel when the set begins, but a few minutes later it can encounter The Middle or Levels and suddenly understand that the unfamiliar performer onstage has been part of familiar music for years.
The presentation itself remains relatively stripped down compared with the enormous production that follows later in the evening. Current tour appearances have put MarcLo onstage for roughly half an hour, frequently around the time arena seats are still filling. He has been working largely as a one-man performer, handling instruments himself while moving around a stage designed for a much larger headlining production.
That situation can be unforgiving. Opening an arena before much of the audience has arrived means there is no established energy to inherit, and a solo performer has considerably less visual machinery available than the artist who will eventually headline the night. MarcLo's background as a musician and producer becomes particularly useful there because the set does not depend entirely on singing over a backing track. The musicianship is part of the introduction.
Recent performances have also carried an unusual bit of career context. MarcLo has described the UGLY Tour as his first tour, an almost strange statement for someone whose professional music credits stretch back so far. It emphasizes the distinction between succeeding in studios and learning how to occupy a large stage under your own name.
The solo work itself has been developing for years. Earlier projects including Premonitions and Origins allowed MarcLo to experiment with putting his own voice at the center, but 11 DAYS represents the clearest commitment to making that side of his career equal to the writing and production work that originally established him.
The album also reveals why a list of his commercial songwriting credits tells only part of the story. MarcLo is capable of writing highly polished pop music for other artists, but his own recordings lean heavily toward R&B and soul, with live instrumentation and vocal arrangements that reflect the music he grew up around. The same versatility that allowed him to move between major pop sessions becomes more personal when there is no outside artist to write for.
His current tour set makes that distinction visible. Haze and September Baby belong to MarcLo's own developing identity, while The Middle and Levels represent years spent helping other performers find theirs. Your Kind of Crazy connects both worlds directly, placing one of his collaborations with the night's headliner into his own portion of the show.
That may be the most compelling part of MarcLo's position on the Austin bill. For many people arriving early at Moody Center, he will be the least familiar name among the performers. Yet there is a good chance they already know several pieces of his work.
The UGLY Tour gives MarcLo the opportunity to change that relationship. Instead of remaining a name buried in songwriting credits, he is walking onto arena stages by himself and attaching a face and voice to the music. After years of helping shape records for other people, the current chapter is about finding out what happens when MarcLo keeps the songs for himself.
Setlist for the show at the Moody Center
- TFMH
- Haze
- September Baby
- Intrest
- The Middle
- Body on Me
- Your Kind of Crazy
- Levels
- All Time High
- Zoom Out
- Marvel
- Sopranos Ending
- ONS
MarcLo shared the stage with Teddy Swims and Avery Anna at the Moody Center. They continue across the United States and Canada with the last stop at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California on November 18, 2027.
MarcLo
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