The Best Los Angeles Concerts: Nov. 4-10, 2024

Georgia’s Gunna mumbled but seldom stumbled his way to becoming one of the fastest-rising rappers of the late 2010s. His story is almost textbook way-to-the-top-of-hip-hop, beginning with throwing a verse on a big name’s track (Young Thug’s 2016 “Floyd Mayweather”), signing to said star’s label, releasing mixtapes and EPs, then breaking the Billboard 200 for the first time with Drip Season 3, on which Young Thug returned the feature favor alongside an array of other genre luminaries. Gunna then made his first crossover appearance on Mariah Carey’s 2018 “Stay Long Love You,” which primed him perfectly for the by then almost inevitable success of his long awaited debut album, Drip or Drown 2, which stormed the Billboard 200 at number 3. A 2022 racketeering charge only added to his street cred, and the prolific, drip-obsessed Gunna has continued to chart with his disconcertingly jittery cadence on late-night smoldering singles like this year’s “Prada Dem” and “Jump.” Tickets at Live Nation.

Willow Avalon recently endured a social media roasting for her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before an NFL game in London. As if a country singer crooning the U.S. national anthem before what Brits call “American football” in an English soccer stadium wasn’t weird enough, viewers took exception to her extravagantly tremulous timbre and bathrobe-esque attire. But being almost cartoonishly country is the very appeal of the Georgia-raised, New York-based Avalon, who recently signed with Atlantic Records. Her tirelessly melodic material is lyrically endearing and instantly gratifying, delivered in a yodel-adjacent songbird warble that, while apparently a deal-breaker for some, is her distinguishing meal ticket. Avalon’s latest single, “Homewrecker” is effectively a timely “Jolene” sequel/response written from the other woman’s angle, while “Hey There, Dolly” dares to lovingly (and somewhat accurately) self-compare to Dolly Parton herself. Tickets at AXS.

The Blood Brothers first performance in a decade at Best Friends Forever Fest in Las Vegas last month marked the return of a sour, dissenting post-hardcore voice in an era of unprecedented political polarization. Touring to mark 20 years since their breakthrough fourth album, Crimes, the quintet’s restless, angular angst feels if anything even more apt today than it did when skewering George W. Bush-era military policy and mass media. The deliberate, experimental antithesis of easy listening, The Blood Brothers are challenging, extreme and uncompromising, yet sufficiently palatable to have twice gatecrashed the U.S. Top 200 albums and toured with the likes of Against Me! and Coheed & Cambria. They’ve only once previously reunited since their 2007 breakup, so make the most of this opportunity for a singular sonic and lyrical slap around the head. Local openers Entry, centered around Touché Amoré guitarist Clayton Stevens and frenetically anguished vocalist Sara G, potently fuse hardcore, D-beat and power violence. Tickets at Dice.

Started by North Carolina singer-songwriter BJ Barham in his college dorm nearly twenty years ago, American Aquarium is a rustic alt-country outfit – even their name comes from a Wilco lyric – that remains, despite countless personnel changes, one of the most enthralling live acts on the club circuit. Their latest offering and tenth studio album, The Fear Of Standing Still, released in July, is more visceral and uninhibited than its 2022 predecessor Chicamacomino, thoroughly sounding like a band trying admirably to capture the on-stage energy of their thousands of gigs to date in studio surrounds. While American Aquarium’s commercial high water mark was 2020’s Lamentations, which made number 16 on the U.S. Top Country Albums chart, and the lineup was changed entirely in 2017 and yet more since, The Fear Of Standing Still makes a great gateway to both Barham’s deft songcraft and the enduring spirit of his band’s sweat-stained stage prowess. Tickets at See Tickets.

Perennially underrated Kaitlin Butts is a one-woman Red Dirt disruptor, determined to reframe female roles in the traditionally male-dominated sub-genre – and have a lot of fun along the way. While genuinely Oklahoman, Butts only took a Red Dirt crash course in adulthood, drawn to its often dark truths and dearth of commercial pandering. Accordingly, it’s been quite a road for this forthright singer-songwriter, who now resides, somewhat ironically given her disposition towards Oklahoma/Texas country, in Nashville. After music school and some Red Dirt history lessons from her mom, she finally released her debut album, Same Hell, Different Devil in 2015. It was seven years before her critically acclaimed follow-up What Else Can She Do? explored unfulfilled dreams and unfulfilling lives in deeply affecting fashion. This year’s ambitious Roadrunner! – an unconventional effort inspired by Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! musical – continued to celebrate this former theatre kid’s background and genre while challenging the latter’s gender stereotypes, including a surprise reimagining of Kesha’s “Hunt You Down.” Tickets at Ticketmaster.

Mariah Carey’s alleged diva behavior is legendary, but at some point after becoming a mom in 2011, the 220-million-selling, five-octave R&B empress appeared to develop a sense of humor about herself (or maybe her prior histrionics were at least partially a wry joke all along?), including agreeing to pioneer James Corden’s beloved Carpool Karaoke TV segment in 2015. Alongside the enduring seasonal ubiquity of her 1994 “All I Want for Christmas Is You” holiday single, Carey is approaching the “cultural treasure” status of an R&B Dolly Parton (and I do mean approaching – Parton is a borderline deity to millions). Whatever the state of her diva-ness, expect an ecstatic reaction to Carey’s larger-than-life persona and jaw-dropping catalog, including an unbroken run of multi-platinum albums throughout the 1990s, at the Hollywood Bowl. Tickets at Ticketmaster.

Essentially the solo project of Brit post-punker Matt Johnson, The The’s arc roughly consists of UK (and some international) chart success from 1980 through the mid ‘90s; a 2003-2017 hiatus; and reforming as a substantial cult act seven years ago, culminating in the September release of Ensoulment. And the band’s current incarnation is a true reunion in that the current members were mostly involved as far back as the late ‘80s. Apparently, Johnson doesn’t fiscally need to operate as The The, which perhaps underpins both the strengths and weaknesses of the kinda funky, sometimes spoken word-y Ensoulment. Refreshingly, its music and lyrics, exploring everything from the dangers of AI to human heartbreak, seem utterly sincere and free of commercial compromise. Johnson remains admirably true to the genre’s love of cynicism and metaphor, thus thoroughly meriting The The’s continued name-to-drop standing. Tickets to the all-ages show at AXS.

Although formed in Seattle, La Luz’s harmony-rich “surf noir” makes perfect sense in surf music’s historic home, Southern California. While incongruously most popular in the decidedly un-sunny/surfy UK, over a dozen years and five albums they’ve earned a cult following stateside, too. After defying pandemic blues with both studio and live albums in 2021, they returned this year with News of the Universe and a radically retooled lineup. Now, only LA vocalist/guitarist Shana Cleveland remains from the original band, with keyboardist Maryam Qudus (aka Spacemoth) and bassist Lee Johnson now aboard. The arrival of Qudus, also a producer, finds La Luz incorporating electronic enhancements on tracks like the ethereal yet oddly ominous “Strange World,” while “Poppies” remains sparse and contemplative. La Luz shows are known for throwback fun including Soul Train-style dance contests, but don’t expect cheap kitsch - instead, Cleveland’s ghostly vocals washed with her bandmates’ crystalline harmonies summon both serious small-hours introversion and welcome, gauzy escape.

As with The Cure and Robert Smith, a Psychedelic Furs song doesn’t really become one until Richard Butler opens his mouth, his uniquely weathered pack-a-day croon at once cinematic and dive-bar intimate. While best known stateside for “Pretty in Pink” – a single that was a minor UK hit in 1981 but garnered way more transatlantic recognition after it featured on the eponymous 1986 movie soundtrack – the London new wave quintet enjoyed consistent commercial success throughout the 1980s before, after nearly thirty years without an album, returning with the tremendous Made of Rain in 2020. Besides cracking the Top 20 on both sides of the Pond and elsewhere, that album only enhanced the here-and-now cred of the band, still centered upon Butler and his bassist brother, Tim, that's been among the most reliably convincing post-punk legacy acts since reuniting at the turn of the Millennium. Tickets at Ticketmaster.

An Enter Shikari song can provide a 4-minute instant education in multiple UK youth soundtracks. Versatile, voltaic, overtly principled and suffering from an eccentric sonic ADHD, they cram strep-throated post-hardcore, singable alt rock, electronicore, and throbbing dubstep and grime often into a single statement (2012’s explosive “Arguing with Thermometers” perhaps the most literal case in point). Enter Shikari have not only been a band for an unbroken 21 years but also boast an unchanged lineup throughout, perhaps in part because of their DIY business ethos (including their own record label) that has largely insulated them from the music industry’s notoriously “use once and destroy” practices. And this extremely rare continuity has fostered a very visible chemistry between this one-stop British invasion, whose virtuosity does not preclude sheer rampant commitment on stage, with singer Rou Reynolds typically making intimate contact with the first few rows (and sometimes the bar top) and drummer Rob Rolfe alone exuding more charisma than most bands combined.

Tickets to the all-ages show at Live Nation.

Just when you think there can’t possibly be any more festival themes, sub-themes, and blended themes left to build an event around, along comes And Always Forever. Invading both stages of Echo Park’s sister Echoplex and Echo venues, the inaugural festival marries dense, emotionally layered shoegaze with propulsive, resurgent electroclash in what should be a laser-aimed, juxtaposing yin-yang pairing. The single-day And Always Forever includes performances by OGs like Swirlies (“Two Girls Kissing”), veteran ambient ‘gazers lovesliescrushing, and Astrobrite (the noisePopgaze project of lovesliescrushing’s Scott Cortez); rare appearances from overseas electronic acts like Berlin’s Schwefelgelb, Canada’s Marie Davidson, Croatian Armor (aka Loke Rahbek), who’s actually from Denmark; and genre innovators like Purest Form, Urika’s Bedroom, juggler, MGNA Crrrta, @, and Touching Ice. There will also be DJ sets from Eera, Slolphia, Avalon B2B Jasmine Johnson, Sakaye, and Olive Kimoto, plus a book fair on the Echoplex patio curated by Virginia’s Pomegranate Press. Tickets at Live Nation.