It was easier to get hip than hydrated at Saturday’s steamy FYF Fest at downtown’s Los Angeles State Historic Park. The star of the much-ballyhooed conflagration of niche artists seemed to Logistical Problems. Thirty minutes to get a $4 bottle of water? Forty-five minutes to grab a quesadilla? Ninety minutes just to get in? Welcome […]
By Laura Ferreiro As the summer draws to a close, the Chemical Brothers joined forces with fellow dance music purveyors Chromeo and YACHT for the penultimate show of the 2010 KCRW World Fest series at the Hollywood Bowl. The veteran British duo proved capable of getting nearly everyone at the venue out of their seats […]
For all the juice the supposedly revitalized, social media-fueled Sunset Strip is enjoying these days, it remains on many nights a living museum for rock clichés. Tired metal, un-ironic Spinal Tapestry, decadence-celebrating party rock and rap – often, the welcome mat is out, and the audiences here, straining to hear echoes of the days the […]
By Liam Gowing What do you get when you combine a funk-folk journeyman and an indie rock singer-songwriter with the son of a rock music icon? A hell of a lot of secrecy, apparently. At least that was the case Tuesday night when KCRW music director Jason Bentley welcomed a star-studded audience to The Village […]
Sunday at Sunset Junction was as pretty as, well, Leslie Stevens’ smile. (Yeah, that sounds country, but so are Leslie Stevens & the Badgers, and besides, look at that first gallery photo.) Anyway, besides the Badgers, a couple of our other favorite “ampersand” bands – Fitz & the Tantrums and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic […]
From Andy Clockwise’s show-stealing afternoon set (top photo) to Ghostland Observatory’s laser-guided dance party at night, the first day of Sunset Junction 2010 was a festive affair. Besides a strong bill on the local stage featuring the likes of Eastern Conference Champions, Everest, Chief and Dawes, Fishbone, Bad Brains and Big Daddy Kane delivered strong […]
Sets by Snoop Dogg, Wu-Tang Clan, A Tribe Called Quest and Lauryn Hill (top) highlighted Saturday’s Rock the Bells festival at the NOS Events Center in San Bernardino, where a crowd estimated at 25,000 got their old-school hip-hop on. I will leave the reviewing to my former colleague Jeff Weiss, the only man who write […]
Few artists inhabit their music like Jim James, or transfer the euphoria of making it to their live audiences. My Morning Jacket’s two-hour show on Thursday night at the Greek Theatre was a potent display of firepower staged amid smoke and vivid lights that allowed James to both commune in isolation with the adoring crowd […]
Photos, review by Laurie Scavo Australian juggernaut Empire of the Sun are a festival band, and Wednesday’s show at the Music Box – the first of three-night, sold-out stand – was no festival, no matter how hard it tried. Fronted by the Sleepy Jackson’s Luke Steele and fueled by the enormous buzz generated by shows […]
I was out of town for the Silversun Pickups’ hometown show Friday night at the Greek, cursing the gods for scheduling it the same weekend as Lollapalooza. I have, however, lived vicariously through the Times’ review, and, even while on vacation, coerced little elves into posting this gallery of Debi Del Grande’s photographs from the […]
