You picked me up / Oh, yes you did / When nobody else would / I know you did / And you did things / For me, my baby / That nobody else could / I know you did
It’s another hot one here in LA. Actually at 90 degrees, we’re on a cooling trend. After two short weeks it’s like…I’m getting my pencils sharped and notebooks organized for a busy, busy fall. The trick is to be happily working away. Honestly those summer cucumbers and watermelon help.
Per tradition, September marks the beginning of school and triggers the time for young bands to release new songs. So, with that in mind…
Some lineups look good on a flyer, and lineups that make sense the second the first act starts, and this one was the second kind. On August 21, Little Stranger headlined the Observatory OC in Santa Ana, the Orange County stop on their Broken Hearted Boys Tour, and they brought along three acts who have been turning up on each other’s records for years. Tropidelic, Jarv, and Damn Skippy supported them—four sets, one extended crew, and a room that never really cooled off in between.
Damn Skippy kicked things off with a ton of energy, setting the mood for the night and really getting everyone moving. The Carolinas rapper does not ease into anything—he came out at full speed and had the early arrivals on his side before most of them had found a spot on the floor. Jarv was up next and kept that momentum going. The Brooklyn MC and producer works in a classic boom-bap style without ever sounding like a museum piece, and by the end of his set, he had us ready for the next two bands.
Tropidelic came next, and they are always an exciting set—this night was no different. The six-piece out of Cleveland runs reggae, hip-hop, and horn-driven funk together in a way that should not work as smoothly as it does, and frontman Matthew Roads spends the whole set making sure nobody gets to stand still.
The set included “Follow Your Nature,” “New World,” “Sunny Days,” and “Same Hat,” with collaborations “Pressure” with Nahte and Skippy, “Movie Star” with Jarv, and “Holiday” with Little Stranger. That is the thing about a bill like this one—the guests are already in the building, so the collabs actually happen instead of getting name-checked from the stage.
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes / Let them know you realize that life goes fast / It’s hard to make the good things last / You realize the sun doesn’t go down / It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round
On Tuesday, we dropped our youngest off at college—a new chapter for the Sidel family. I don’t know if I have a soundtrack for my thoughts and feelings this week. Excited, emotional, grateful, proud, and anxious as any parent would be. File under: Mindblower.
When I started playing records last night, the song that came to mind was “Rock On,” but I believe I dropped “Thunderwing” instead.
On August 7 Rebelution headlined the first of 3 nights at the Pacific Amphitheatre, another in a great season at the OC Fair. Skip Marley and Niko Rubio supported them. It was one of those Costa Mesa evenings that makes you glad you bought the ticket—warm but not hot, a breeze coming in off the coast, and the smell of fair food drifting over the hill behind the amphitheatre. People were in their seats early for this one, which does not always happen at the fair, and you could tell from the parking lot that it was going to be a good night.
Niko Rubio started things off. This was my second time seeing her, and she was just as amazing as I remembered her. I love her mix of different music genres. She is a Mexican and Salvadoran American artist out of Southern California, and she pulls from dreamy alt-pop, mariachi, and old-school R&B without any of it feeling forced.
It all works even better live than it does on record. She played songs “Sunday Girl,” “Savior Girl,” and “Ring Ring” from her recent EP. Her band was tight, her voice carried all the way to the back rows, and she had the early crowd on her side within about two songs. If you have not heard her yet, go find “Ring Ring” and the newer “Sunday Girl” material. She is only going to get bigger from here.
Next up was Skip Marley. He came out, and from the first note, he was making the crowd move. He played his original “Lions,” as well as Bob Marley covers “Exodus” and “Is This Love.” With every song he played, you could see and hear the feeling in it, and all the fans were singing along.
I got a baby’s brain and an old man’s heart / Took eighteen years to get this far / Don’t always know what I’m talkin’ about / Feels like I’m livin’ in the middle of doubt
‘Cause I’m eighteen / I get confused every day / Eighteen, I just don’t know what to say / Eighteen, I gotta get away
It’s Friday, late morning, and I’m sitting in the dining area of our groovy pad in the canyon, having a late breakfast with my son Jonah. Last week, the kid turned 18. On Tuesday, he went off to college for his freshman year.
I’m not saying this is the last breakfast we’ll have together, but I was up late last night alone with my turntable and crate of old records, memories of turning 18, and dropping a needle on my worn copy Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits.
WORDS AND IMAGES: DANIEL GRAY | New wave. Art rock. Synth pop. Rock. Take your pick because it’s been hard to define the music of The Fixx. As much as they have been labeled an “’80s band,” they still make new music, and more than half their album output comes from the ’90s and 2000s. But still, they seem to be products of the Reagan era, and the multitude of videos played on MTV, shot in the style and look of the day, helped freeze them in time for the casual audience. But The Fixx fans know better.
Playing to a packed house at the Belasco in downtown Los Angeles, The Fixx took the stage and opened with “Beautiful Friction,” the title song from their 2012 album. Out of their first four songs, only “Stand or Fall” was from the 1980s. And while, without a doubt, many in the audience were there to hear the hits, which include four top-twenty tunes, The Fixx was out to play a range of songs from their vast repertoire and not pander to any era.
Truthfully, the night was all the better for it. Because the band are better musicians and Cy Curnin is a much deeper lyricist than standard definition music videos can convey. The quintet featured the “classic” lineup of Cy Curnin on lead vocals, Jamie West-Oram on guitar, Rupert Greenall on keyboards, Adam Woods on drums, and Dan K. Brown on bass.
Curnin is tall and lean, and the all-white suit he wore only enhanced a theatrical nature that has a bit of David Bowie and David Byrne to it. He doesn’t just sing songs, he performs them. Curnin is easily the most animated of the band, with Greenall and Woods naturally remaining behind their respective instruments, and the nattily dressed Brown, complete with a top hat, staying anchored in place while playing bass.
Nobody in that room knew what they were watching. Not the couple beside me who had flown in from England. Not the guy two rows up in a faded Trapeze shirt. Not me, camera in hand, working a Saturday night in the desert.
On August 1, we all thought we were going to be seeing a killer rock and roll show courtesy of Kings of Chaos. Three days later, Glenn Hughes announced his retirement from touring and live performances, revealing that his medical team had told him he needs another open-heart surgery—and just like that, the seventeen songs I had spent the evening photographing became the last public performance of one of the most extraordinary voices rock has ever produced.
I have been sitting with that for a week. Here is what I saw.
Kings of Chaos is Matt Sorum’s idea, and it is a deceptively simple one. Take the drummer’s chair—Sorum has occupied some of the best ones in rock, from Guns N’ Roses to Velvet Revolver to The Cult—build a bulletproof house band around it, then rotate in rock’s upper tier from who is willing and available.
There is no new album to promote. There is no narrative arc. There are just great songs played by the people who actually made them, in whatever configuration the calendar allows. On paper, it reads like a casino package. In practice, on this night, it was closer to a summit.
The room was near capacity without quite selling out, and the fans I spoke with had come in from all over Southern California and from as far away as England and Australia. That tells you something about how thin the ground has gotten for shows like this one.
Some concerts you plan your whole summer around. Others land on a random Wednesday in the middle of the OC Fair, and those are the ones you end up talking about for weeks. July 29th was the second kind. Cypress Hill rolled into the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa with 35 years of hits behind them and absolutely no interest in taking it easy, and Los Angeles’ own Ozomatli got there first and set the bar high. Two bands from the same city, two completely different sounds, one crowd that never sat down. If you skipped this one because it was a school night, you missed the best party in Orange County.
The show was part of the OC Fair’s Toyota Summer Concert Series, which is still one of the best deals in Southern California—your concert ticket gets you into the Fair, so you can spend the afternoon eating things you would never eat anywhere else and then walk straight into an 8,000-seat amphitheatre. By the 7:30 downbeat, the place was packed, loose, and ready to go.
Ozomatli opened things up with the unique blend of genres that really makes for an amazing show. Three decades in, the LA collective still throws salsa, cumbia, hip-hop, funk, reggae, and rock into the same song and makes it sound effortless. They played great songs like “Tus Ojos,” “After Party,” “Como Ves,” and “O Le Le” that had people singing and dancing throughout the venue.
The horns did most of the heavy lifting, the rhythm section never let up, and the crowd figured out pretty quickly this was not a set to spend in the beer line. They closed out their set playing out into the crowd and interacting with the fans—drums, horns, and all, straight down the aisles. It is their signature move, and it still works every time.
Well, I got up feeling so down / I got off being sold out / I’ve kept the movie rolling / But the story’s getting old now / Oh yeah
Well I just looked in the mirror / And things aren’t looking so good / I’m looking California / And feeling Minnesota / Oh yeah
So now you know / Who gets mystified / So now you know / Who gets mystified
Show me the power child, I’d like to say / That I’m down on my knees today / Yeah it gives me the butterflies, gives me away / ‘Til I’m up on my feet again
Our summer heatwave is here and so are my “summer lazies.” Last week I was so knocked around I couldn’t even spit an Idelic minute, let alone an hour.
Ultimately, LA is the coolest city to spend the summer in. The humidity is low, making summer nights relatively comfortable. As I flipped through my crates of melting vinyl, I felt urges for grunge, ’70s punk, oddballs, and a few new bits.
WORD AND IMAGES: MATT MARTINEZ IN LONG BEACH, CA | The return of Vans Warped Tour in 2025 brought together Warped Tour veterans and many bands that would have sharpened their teeth as performers on these stages, had Warped Tour never gone on hiatus. With the success of this mixing of bands last year, Kevin Lyman has continued that ideology with this year’s lineup. We have some returning fan favorites and a slew of bands that have never graced the Warped Tour stage until now.
The Vans and Off the Wall stages were the biggest on-site and hosted some of the most legendary bands in Warped Tour history, giving them some of the longest set times of the day. Some other favorites included: Mayday Parade, Taking Back Sunday, Third Eye Blind, The Used, and Papa Roach.
The Ghost and Beatbox stages hosted many bands that built their careers at Warped, as well as up-and-coming bands leading the charge for the new Warped Generation. Featuring bands like: The Academy Is…, Drain, Silverstein, Hawthorne Heights, and many more.
The Verizon, Doordash, Rex, and Octopus stages were a mix of genres, with pop punk bands, metalheads, hardcore kids, and everything in between. If you want to experience some new music for yourself, you could find it here. Featuring bands like: Daisy Grenade, Origami Angel, Jiluka, The Paradox, The Ataris, Meet Me @ The Alter, Hot Milk, Save Ferris, and so many more bands playing tight 30-minute sets.
Now that the festival is 30 years old, there’s a feeling of passing the torch, as you could see plenty of parents bringing their kids to experience a festival that has always held such a strong place in their hearts. Many of these kids seem to have been born after Warped Tour first ended in 2019, but their parents introduced them to music that will live on through them.
WORD AND IMAGES: MATT MARTINEZ IN LONG BEACH, CA | There is no more famous festival than the Vans Warped Tour. Started by Kevin Lyman in 1995, the festival aimed to give a stage to punk, ska, hardcore, metal, and alternative bands. It quickly became a household name as the biggest summer traveling festival, and after 24 years, Warped Tour came to an end in 2019.
However, in 2025, Warped Tour was brought in a new format. It was now a two-day festival with only three locations. After the success of its return last year, Warped Tour announced it will return in 2026, maintaining the two-day format and now including shows in Mexico and Canada. Southern California has always been a fan favorite, and Warped Tour invaded Long Beach, CA, where fans showed up to show their love for this festival.
Walking through the gates of Warped Tour was like walking through a time capsule. On the other side of security were a plethora of fans throwing it back to their high school days, with all the older emos bringing back their dyed hair, raccoon-tail hairstyles, and black-and-white checkered clothing as far as the eye could see.
You even saw the new generation of kids and teenagers going full scene-kid looks, showing that this style can still work across generations. You also had the punks showing up with liberty spikes, many people wearing costumes, and battle vests showing off fans’ favorite bands. This was a melting pot of counter culture, and we had music to unite us.
Like usual, Warped Tour does not announce the set times before the show. At 11 AM, fans gathered around the Warped Wall as Kevin Lyman dropped the curtain on the legendary inflatable that holds the schedule of the bands for the day. Fans mobbed the site to take pictures of the set times while they frantically planned their day on the spot.
I’ll make you a deal, like any other candidate / We’ll pretend we’re walking home ’cause your future’s at stake / My set is amazing, it even smells like a street
There’s a bar at the end where I can meet you and your friend / Someone scrawled on the wall “I smell the blood of les tricoteuses” / Who wrote up scandals in other bars / I’m having so much fun with the poisonous people / Spreading rumours and lies and stories they made up
Some make you sing and some make you scream / One makes you wish that you’d never been seen / But there’s a shop on the corner that’s selling papier mache / Making bullet-proof faces, Charlie Manson, Cassius Clay / If you want it, boys, get it here, thing
This year’s summer heatwave finally made it to LA this week—it’s too hot to do much more than work and watch the World Cup. Tip of the hat to my poor Brit pals. I was pulling for them and knew that so many old friends were holding fast.
Luckily for me, I’m a UCLA grad and fan. Unlike most big universities, at least in my day, Bruin fans always took sports in stride. If we made it to a match, we enjoyed the sunshine more than the beer. A loss would be easily forgotten with a ride, pretty friends, and the top down on the way to the beach.
There’s a certain kind of summer night that only rolls around a few times a year—warm air, a breeze drifting through an open-air amphitheatre, and a lineup that keeps the good vibes flowing from the first act to the last. Saturday, July 11, was one of those nights. The Elovaters brought their brand of reggae-rock to the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, California, for one of the largest headlining shows they’ve ever done, and from the opening note to the final singalong, it lived up to the moment.
The show landed as part of the Pacific Amphitheatre’s Summer Concert Series, the stretch of shows that turns the OC Fairgrounds into an open-air stage every summer. With the fairground lights flickering on and the California air finally cooling down, it was hard to picture a better setting for a night of feel-good reggae. By the time the first act hit the stage, the place was already buzzing.
The night kicked off with Afroman, who set the tone with a set full of humor and easygoing charm. He cracked jokes and talked about some of the things he’s gone through recently between songs, keeping things loose and personal in a way that had the crowd on his side right from the jump. When he rolled into fan favorites like “Lemon Pound Cake” and his signature “Because I Got High,” the whole place sang every word right back to him. It was the kind of opener that warms a crowd up without ever trying too hard—a good time, plain and simple.
Next came The Hip Abduction, and they carried that energy straight into the evening. The Florida seven-piece has a sound all their own, blending reggae, world rhythms, and pop into something built for exactly this kind of setting. They ran through songs like “Some Say the Ocean,” “Pacific Coast Highway,” “Chasin’ Waves,” and “We’ll Be Alright,” and by the time they hit their stride, the crowd was up and dancing. You could really feel the energy building—horns, harmonies, and grooves rolling off the stage as the sun dropped behind the amphitheatre. It was the perfect bridge between Afroman’s laid-back opener and the headliners waiting in the wings.
