The Best Los Angeles Concerts: Jan. 20-26, 2025

Originally slated for October, this rescheduled show will find area indie rock heroes Young the Giant performing their critically acclaimed 2014 sophomore album, Mind Over Matter, in its entirety. While they’ve long since relocated to LA, YtG is one of only a handful of national acts to emerge from Irvine, making it big with singles like “My Body,” “Cough Syrup” and “Apartment”; and even supporting Gwen Stefani at two farewell shows for the old Irvine Meadows in 2016 - and later headlining the opening of its temporary replacement, FivePoint Amphitheatre. The quintet’s music delves deep into its members’ international backgrounds to produce a global stew of sunny indie pop and anthemic rock ready-made for fests and arenas. Tonight is the second of two Troubadour shows marking landmark records for Young the Giant, who will perform their 2010 self-titled debut album in its entirety the night prior. Tickets at AXS.

It’s no coincidence that Wu-Tang Clan co-founder GZA is also known as The Genius. His chill yet enunciated flow and complex, highly literate rhymes are further distinguished by atypical hip-hop subject matter. Boasting one of the largest vocabularies in the genre, his cerebral, sometimes metaphorical wordplay has reflected his lifelong fascination with science, wide-ranging philosophies, and even chess. While often overshadowed by Wu Tang’s more flamboyant Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Method Man, GZA is widely considered by hip-hop aficionados to be the collective’s finest rapper. While his 1991 solo debut, Words from the Genius largely vanished without a trace, its darkly atmospheric ’94 follow-up, Liquid Swords hit the Top 10 of the Billboard 200. Over time, Liquid Swords has not only accumulated sales, being certified Platinum nearly twenty years later, but also critical recognition as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time. GZA will perform his classic in its entirety at The Glass House on Tuesday, January 21. Tickets at Dice.

A decade ago, London’s The xx were all-powerful in indie circles - their 2012 album, Coexist made them a huge draw at major global festivals including Coachella, Primavera Sound, and Bestival. While the hushed, soulful vocals of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim tended to hog headlines, it was producer/DJ Jamie xx who crafted their marvelously understated and intimate yet oddly danceable signature (and has also worked with Adele, Florence + The Machine et al). Along with three hit albums with The xx, Jamie xx has also released a pair himself, with 2015 solo debut In Colour hitting the upper reaches of charts worldwide. Released in September, four-years-in-the-making follow-up In Waves has been hailed as capturing the animated, ecstatic pleasures of contemporary dancefloors with rare aplomb. The U.S. has never been The xx’s strongest market, but the addition of a second Jamie xx show at Shrine Expo Hall speaks to his stateside cult following. Tickets at AXS.

LA’s Fever 333 harness punk rock and hip-hop to a heavily politicized, subversive spirit with astonishing results. Like an (even more) adrenalized and lyrically specific Rage Against the Machine, they both speak to and channel widely-held frustrations in modern America, including police brutality, social inequality, capitalism and authoritarianism. With their furiously incensed verses, Fever 333 has done much to keep politics in the largely neutered mainstream punk genre since first forming in 2017. Initially a trio comprising former Letlive vocalist Jason Aalon Butler, guitarist Stephen Harrison and drummer Aric Improta, the latter two surprisingly quit in 2022 and F333 is now a quartet including striking bassist April Kae and impossibly virtuosic former Mars Volta drummer Thomas Pridgen. Last year’s sophomore album, Darker White, keeps their signature indignation raging, fueled by both current events like the Gaza genocide and perceived global apathy to these. Tickets at Live Nation.

Brash and braggadocious yet polished in delivery and production, Kash Doll makes such an immediate impression that just an Insta clip earned one of her first breaks, a 2016 Drake opening slot. The Detroit rapper comes from a place of sheer fiscal survival, having dropped out of school to start stripping to support her family – an occupation that surely inspired her stage name. A 2018 deal with Republic Records was immediately rewarded with hit single “Ice Me Out,” which remains a fan favorite, but even as an indie artist prior she was racking up eight-figure YouTube views for viral phenomena like 2017’s “For Everybody.” Five years after her debut album, Stacked, Kash Doll returned in November with the independently released The Last Doll, which debuted at number 3 stateside. Now a mother of two in her early thirties, she celebrates both her personal growth and artistic evolution with a record that bravely challenges the somewhat cartoonish persona that brought her fame. Tickets at AXS.

This three-night stand brings to Hollywood a jazz and fusion drummer whose renown far transcends those genres. Along with his prodigious solo and sideman catalog, Englishman Simon Phillips was a member of Toto for 21 years, toured with the reunited Who, and has played sessions for the likes of Big Country, Jeff Beck, 10cc and even Judas Priest. All of these diverse stage and studio experiences have audibly colored his own ambitious jazz-focused output, which has included a 2017 Best Contemporary Instrumental Album GRAMMY nomination for the fourth album of his fluid fusion project, Protocol. These intimate gigs will focus on that record’s 2022 follow-up, Protocol V with the band currently completed by longtime electric bassist Ernest Tibbs (Andy Summers, Allan Holdsworth etc.), veteran Venezuelan keys man Otmaro Ruiz (John McLaughlin, Alex Acuña), multi-GRAMMY winning saxophonist Jacob Scesney (Maroon 5, John Legend) and glittering young CalArts alumnus Alex Sill on guitar. Tickets at Ticketweb.

Dancing her way around the duality of beauty and barbarism, Detroit’s Proxoxie has been getting trawled up by hyperpop and scenecore algorithms since her debut single “Benny Can You Feel My Pain” dropped in 2021. A marriage of pop melodies and trap beats, she has often adopted personas in song, including the serial killer archetype of her Dream Sequence EP four years ago. Ironically for an artist immersed in what’s become known as “scenecore” – essentially TikTok/SoundCloud-fueled lo-fi club music infused with emo-esque sentiments – Proxoxie is all about its genre-blending open-mindedness but not-so-much the surrounding subculture, instead choosing a singular path through concept releases that have traversed an arc from unblinking realism to surreal journeys of self-acceptance. A proudly niche artist who blends commercial-sounding pop with more maximalist, well designed hyperpop, Proxoxie has simply gotten better at what she does in public, as evidenced by her 2023 debut full-length Darling, It Wouldn’t Be a Party Without You… Tickets at Ticketmaster.

Widely recognized as one of the most innovative and influential artists of his generation, Canada’s Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, has morphed from anonymously posting enigma to full-blown pop star and beyond, without ever losing his aura of experimentalism and mystique. Equally adept at dark alt R&B ballads and Day-Glo electro-pop nostalgia, this seemingly conflicted juxtaposition and Tesfaye’s yearning tenor have found huge resonance. His feverishly anticipated sixth album, Hurry Up Tomorrow, is scheduled to drop the day before this mega show, with an eponymous psychological thriller movie following in May. While the new record, which completes a trilogy with 2020’s After Hours and ‘22’s Dawn FM, is unreleased at the time of writing, there have been hints and previews, intentional or otherwise, reaching back to a 2020 Instagram live session. At a special July concert in São Paulo, The Weeknd included nine then-unreleased Hurry Up Tomorrow tracks, fusing iconic ‘80s pop influences with contemporary R&B grooves and electro textures. Tickets at Ticketmaster.

It’s indicative of Death From Above 1979’s cult status that just last week this very column mentioned a song by Brazilian indietronica band CSS titled “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above.” A two-piece explosion of punk, hard rock and dance, drummer/vocalist Sebastien Grainger and bassist Jesse Keeler make sounds not only much bigger than this format implies, but also more vivid and nuanced. DFA 1979 made an immediate impact with their 2004 debut album You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine, a Gold-certified hit in their native Canada which remains loud and nasty while simultaneously feeling all the feels so often ignored/obliterated by such proudly loud acts. Their most recent full-length, 2021’s Is 4 Lovers - widely praised as their best since that hard-to-follow first effort - retains all their best elements while audibly attempting to continue the boundary-pushing on which Death From Above 1979 made their name. Tickets at AXS.

Arguably Puerto Rico’s most successful musical group of all time, El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico has been fueling dancing and delight with its rich vocal harmonies and horn-flecked Latin rhythms since 1962. With original member Rafael Ithier still aboard at age 98, the 13-piece salsa group has been a career springboard for so many famed musicians that it has become colloquially known as “The University of Salsa.” El Gran Combo’s 50-plus current and former members include singers Andy Montanez and the late Pellín Rodríguez, as well as late percussionist/orchestra leader Roberto Roena. The group’s deft navigation of shifting market trends has ensured their longevity and enduring popularity, with the most recent of their mind-bogglingly extensive discography, 2021’s “pandemic album” En Cuarentena, as good an example as any of their characteristic fusing of salsa, cumbia, and ranchera genres, while remaining proud ambassadors for one of their native island’s most famous exports. Tickets at Ticketón.

Celebrated Pakistani American singer, composer and producer Arooj Aftab creates intoxicating interminglings of jazz, classical minimalism, Sufi poetry and more. Discovering her musicality in a Pakistan where access to Western online platforms was challenging, Aftab, one of that country’s first musicians to embrace the Internet, is credited as an early architect of the Pakistani indie scene. After attending Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music, she relocated to New York in 2010, becoming a pillar of the city’s jazz and “new music” landscapes. Aftab’s pure, delicately modulating and (to Western ears) exotic vocals helm largely acoustic pieces that variously employ guitar, brass, strings, upright and electric bass, percussion and harp. The first-ever Pakistani to be awarded a GRAMMY – Best Global Performance for her song “Mohabbat” in 2022 – Aftab’s fourth studio album, last year’s Night Reign, explores themes of darkness and nighttime through Pakistani folk music and bebop jazz, with the ostensible gulf between the two barely perceptible or incongruous. Tickets at AXS.