Kevin Bronson on November 5th, 2017

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It’s not like Ted Leo has been completely absent from the landscape — there is his collaboration with Aimee Mann as The Both, for one thing — but Friday’s show at the Teragram Ballroom marked a return of sorts, and a welcome one at that. The reconstituted Ted Leo & the Pharmacists played their first L.A. show since 2010, in support of Leo’s new album “The Hanged Man.” The 47-year-old songwriter drew about a third of his 22-song set from the new album, including “Can’t Go Back” early in the set and the powerful “Lonsdale Avenue,” one of two tunes he performed solo in the middle of the concert. Along the way, he shared some political views and humorous anecdotes about KISS’s onstage banter and his younger days in mosh pits. For the new song “Let’s Stay on the Moon,” he was joined by vocalists Aimee Mann, Paul F Tomkins, Open Mike Eagle and Tawny Newsome before finishing his main set with 2001’s “Biomusicology.” “Timorous Me,” another from that 2001 album “The Tyranny of Distance,” followed in the encore, before he finished the night with 2004’s “Little Dawn.”

New York indie-pop outfit Ian Sweet opened the night.

Photos by Samantha Saturday