Primavera Sound LA 2022: The best & worst of the Barcelona music festival’s inaugural edition on U.S. soil

Primavera Sound LA 2022Photos by Josh Herwitt & courtesy of Primavera Sound LA // Written by Josh Herwitt //

Primavera Sound LA //
LA State Historic Park – Los Angeles
September 16th-18th, 2022 //

It’s no secret that Primavera Sound has had its sights set on Los Angeles for quite some time now. The Barcelona music festival that has been going strong for two decades expanded to Porto in 2012 and will finally stamp its brand on four more cities in 2022 after a two-year delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

LA is the first of those four cities, but with the festival’s other three new locations — São Paulo, Buenos Aires and Santiago — all launching in South America later this year, LA State Historic Park also served as Primavera Sound’s inaugural event in the states.

Spreading four stages across the 32-acre park that remains one of the best spots in the city to host a music festival before and after three years of renovations, PSLA welcomed a wealth of talent from the top line to the bottom. Lorde, Nine Inch Nails and Arctic Monkeys each delivered headline-worthy sets while an indie-leaning undercard highlighted by BICEP (Live), Cigarettes After Sex, Clairo, DARKSIDE, Drain Gang, Fontaines D.C., Girl in Red, GIVĒON, James Blake, King Krule, Khruangbin and Mitski all drew big crowds over the course of three days. In a lot of ways, PSLA fills a much-needed void after the sudden and disheartening end to FYF Fest, which would tout itself as the “best weekend of summer” for many live music fans and was one of our favorite multi-day festivals to cover (read more here).

Any time a new music festival launches though, there are always highs and lows. So without further ado, here are our best and worst moments from Primavera Sound’s first installment on U.S. soil:


Primavera Sound LA 2022

Best: The weather

After LA experienced its worst heat wave of the year earlier this month with temperatures reaching triple digits, the weather luckily cooled down just in time for PSLA. For many of us, a second layer of clothing wasn’t ever necessary from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening. After all, how often does that happen? With great music lined up throughout the day and a forecast hovering in the mid to high 70’s, it truly felt like a quintessential summer weekend in LA.

Primavera Sound LA 2022

Worst: Will Call line

When we arrived at the festival on Friday afternoon, the line at the box office quickly stood out. In fact, it was so long that we knew the wait would be at least an hour for those trying to pick up their passes, only to discover later via Twitter it was even longer for many even at 6 p.m. These are the kind of issues any first-year music festival hopes to avoid and can ultimately prepare for, but when you change your ticket delivery method to in-person on short notice after previously telling fans it would be done electronically, it’s no surprise that you end up pissing off some of your customers.

Primavera Sound LA 2022 - Lorde

Best: Lorde

The 25-year-old singer-songwriter has been making the rounds this year on an extensive world tour in support of 2021’s Solar Power, and there’s no question that her entire stage design and production was impressive to witness. Ahead of festival stops at Life Is Beautiful and Rifflandia over the same weekend, Lorde arrived onstage via a rotating staircase with some of her backing band and ran through 15 songs — from her 2013 debut single “Royals” to Melodrama hits like “Perfect Places” and “Green Light” — as PSLA’s first headliner. We wouldn’t necessarily call ourselves big fans, but we definitely understand why she was deserving of top billing.

Primavera Sound LA 2022

Worst: Food & drink

We will eventually get to the limited viewing space that under-21 guests were offered, but even if you wanted to drink at PSLA, the options were simply not good. This was certainly not the place for craft beer enthusiasts, as your choices were Heineken or the low-calorie Tecate Alta that tasted mostly like beer-flavored water for $12 each. Not only would it be nice to have seen local breweries — there are two excellent ones located across the street from the festival’s entrance — featured, but in a city such as LA with a food-and-drink scene that’s one of the best in the country, partnering with major beer and liquor brands along with a handful of Smorgasburg LA restaurants doesn’t exactly cut it anymore. The only food stall in one of the VIP areas selling “California style” Philly cheeseteaks made us think about how much Goldenvoice has elevated its game in this respect, with top-notch local options at Just Like Heaven (read our festival review here) from Goldburger to Homage Brewing standing out as examples most recently in May.

Primavera Sound LA 2022 - Khruangbin

Best: Khruangbin

The Houston three-piece that has made 70’s Thai funk sound cool again has been one of the hottest acts to tour over the past five years, as evidenced by their three sold-out shows at LA’s Greek Theatre last November. While most might have come Saturday to see Nine Inch Nails, it was K-bin who would steal the show before Trent Reznor and company ever played a note. Those who made it to the main stage for sunset were treated to an hour of grooves, as Mark Speer (guitar, vocals), Laura Lee (bass, vocals) and Donald Johnson (drums, vocals) hypnotized us with fan favorites “María También” and “So We Won’t Forget” before diving into a melody of covers that embraced a wide array of artists, from MF DOOM, The Isley Brothers, Tina Turner and Chris Isaak to 90’s hip-hop legends A Tribe Called Quest, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Warren G and Dr. Dre.

Primavera Sound LA 2022

Worst: Art installations

Sometimes it can be easy to forget how spoiled we are in California when it comes to all of the music festivals we have. Not only do many of our best and brightest such as Coachella, Outside Lands and Lightning in a Bottle showcase a wide range of musical genres, but they also feature their own unique art installations that continue to push the envelope. In the case of Primavera Sound, let’s just say that’s not its M.O. While we can’t fault the festival for keeping the focus strictly on the music, LA State Historic Park did seem to lack some color aesthetically. That said, there were a couple of highlights off the stage, including the vinyl market that was curated by KCRW and Beat Swap Meets as well as the FLATSTOCK poster show series making its only West Coast stop of the year and featuring locals like Kii Arens of La-La Land Prints.

Primavera Sound LA 2022

Best: Signs, sightlines & sound

With the Primavera Sound brand being all about the music, our eyes were mostly focused on the artists performing. Nevertheless, the signs, sightlines and sound at PSLA were all on point. The downtown LA skyline served as a fitting backdrop like it usually does at LASHP, and despite poor audio issues playing a role at outdoor music festivals, we didn’t experience any while we were on the ground so kudos to the organizers for locking that down. If anything, the decibels across the fest’s four stages were so high that we found ourselves needing ear protection most of the weekend.

Primavera Sound LA 2022 - Nine Inch Nails

Worst: Short headliner sets

After Primavera Sound LA unveiled the lineup for its debut this year, we presumed all three headliners would receive at least 90 minutes each day. So when the set times dropped more than a couple weeks in advance, it was a bit of a shock seeing only 75 minutes designated for each of them. A Hall of Fame band like Nine Inch Nails has more than 10 studio albums and several EPs in its catalog but were only granted enough time to crank out 16 songs, many of which have been setlist staples for years up to this point. Though NIN classics like “Wish”, “March of the Pigs”, “Closer”, “Gave Up” and “Head Like a Hole” are never tracks to lack energy live, we’re happy we caught their sold-out gig at the Santa Barbara Bowl (read our show review here) four days earlier for the chance to hear a cover of David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid of Americans” and multiple other deep cuts.

Primavera Sound LA 2022 - Arctic Monkeys

Best: Arctic Monkeys

It was clear when we showed up for PSLA’s final day that the attendance felt bigger than the day prior. Although that seemed a little odd considering it was Sunday and not Saturday, it was a testament to the fan base Arctic Monkeys have built at the 20-year mark. The English rockers haven’t toured since 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, and with their forthcoming seventh LP The Car slated to come out next month, frontman Alex Turner and his bandmates gave us a taste with the disco funk that they’ve cooked up on “I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am” midway through their headlining performance. And even though we didn’t hear lead single “There’d Better Be a Mirrorball” despite it being the only track that they have officially released so far, there were plenty of other thrilling moments for us to remember in between the opening notes of “Do I Wanna Know?” and the closing “R U Mine?” to end the night. Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait too long before there’s a return date to California after the new album drops.

Primavera Sound LA 2022

Worst: Under-21 viewing areas

Most of PSLA’s guests are of legal drinking age, and with the festival boasting a number of alcohol-related sponsors that included Cuervo and Smirnoff, it certainly caters to the over-21 crowd. But for those who weren’t, the viewing areas at the Primavera and Tecate Alta stages were less than ideal. Besides the allotted space being too small and positioned off to the side, underage guests were only informed 10 days in advance. If you’re not 21 yet, make sure to temper your expectations — or we’d recommend waiting until you are before attending.


Primavera Sound LA photographers featured: Nicolita Bradley, Lindsey Byrnes, Pooneh Ghana, Miranda McDonald, Ismael Quintanilla III & Quinn Tucker.

In times when we need it most, COMMON continues to spread worldwide love at Apogee Studio

COMMONPhotos by Brian Lowe // Written by Josh Herwitt //

COMMON //
Apogee Studio – Santa Monica, CA
July 25th, 2019 //

There’s something about the way Lonnie Corant Jaman Shuka Rashid Lynn looks at the world that can give even the biggest cynic a slight glimmer of hope. It’s not just the sense of wonder, but a tranquility in his eyes that makes you contemplate what he’s thinking about amid all of the chaos and daily distractions we have created for ourselves.

Most people know Lynn as COMMON, the Grammy-winning rapper who got his start back in the early 90’s and has since collaborated with everyone from Lauryn Hill to Kanye West, but he’s simply much more than that. An Oscar and Golden Globe winner, the Chicago native is also an actor, writer, filmmaker, model, activist, philanthropist and entrepreneur. First and foremost though, he’s a lover at heart.

For COMMON fans or those who have at least seen him perform live before, this is probably nothing new. Yet, it couldn’t have been more evident than during his private show in Santa Monica last Thursday for KCRW’s Apogee Sessions while currently on tour in support of his 12th studio album Let Love, which drops August 30th. So much so, that at one point during the performance, he rather spontaneously invited a female audience member onstage and serenaded her with a couple of songs. And while it made for a few awkward moments, you could tell that COMMON had the best intentions. Sure, Cynthia felt more than a little out of place up there with embarrassment written all over her face, but she’ll certainly remember those 15 minutes for the rest of her life now while others can see and hear it for themselves when the session premieres Friday, August 23rd on KCRW.

COMMON & Anthony Valadez


COMMON & KCRW DJ Anthony Valadez (right)

That’s what COMMON does — he spreads love to each and every person his music reaches. As KCRW DJ Anthony Valadez pointed out during his sit-down interview with the emcee midway through the evening, COMMON has lots of songs about love, and you could quickly find more than enough evidence to assert that fact by looking at the setlist alone. Of the seven tracks he showcased off Let Love, five had the word “love” in its title, starting with “Show Me That You Love” that opened his set. The album, which is inspired by COMMON’s new memoir “Let Love Have the Last Word”, remains a departure from the political deliberations that dominated his 2016 LP Black America Again and spawned out of our most recent U.S. presidential election. I don’t think we need to revisit that moment in history right now, so let me stick to the script.

When he returned to the stage with his full backing band, COMMON made sure to turn things up another notch with a cover of West’s “Get Em High” that had most in the small, yet vibrant crowd rapping and grooving along to the beat. After almost three decades in the game, the 47-year-old still knows how to command a room’s attention whether he’s debuting new material or falling back on some old favorites like “Go!” from 2005’s Be and “The Light” on 2000’s Like Water for Chocolate.

But on this night inside the 180-person Apogee Studio, COMMON’s overarching message to us stood clear: let love rule today and every day. And to that we say, “Amen, Lonnie … amen.”

Setlist:
Show Me That You Love
South Side
The Corner
The Food
Memories of Home
I Used to Love Her
Take It EZ
Her Love
Love of My Life
Come Close
The Day the Women Took Over
Fancy Free Future Love
Get Em High
Hercules
Go!
Good Morning Love
God Is Love
The Light

Grizzly Bear & TV on the Radio unite for one night in their new hometown to play the Hollywood Bowl

Grizzly Bear


Grizzly Bear

By Josh Herwitt //

Grizzly Bear & TV on the Radio with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith //
Hollywood Bowl – Los Angeles
September 23rd, 2018 //

In the early 2000’s, Grizzly Bear and TV on the Radio emerged out of Brooklyn’s crowded indie-rock scene as two of its biggest darlings. Both bands, in fact, would go on to release their seminal albums a little less than a decade later, starting first in 2008 with TV on the Radio’s Dear Science and continuing the following year with Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest.

But Grizzly Bear and TV on the Radio have each issued two additional LPs since then and somewhat surprisingly, have both made the cross-country move out to LA within the past several years. So, when NPR member station KCRW revealed the lineup for its 2018 World Festival series at the iconic Hollywood Bowl, the final performance on the docket was one that easily stuck out with the two Brooklyn-bred outfits co-headlining and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith opening.

As the glow of a full moon shined bright against a dark sky, Grizzly Bear and TV on the Radio gave us one last taste of summer on the season’s final day. And though it felt rather fitting for them to share a stage in their new hometown, especially one that’s as big as the Bowl’s, each group exhibits its own unique sound and style through a wide range of influences. They may get slapped with the generic “indie rock” tag by some lazy music critics, but without a doubt, their music is much different from the other’s.

TV on the Radio


TV on the Radio

The last time we caught Grizzly Bear was almost a year ago, when they performed at Apogee Studio for KCRW’s Apogee Sessions series (read our review here) and reminded us how they were making “chamber pop” sound cool again. The intimate gig came just a few weeks prior to TV on the Radio’s last show in LA (at David Lynch’s Festival of Disruption), and with their most recent album Seeds from 2014, this was probably one of the final times that they would be specifically showcasing that material live. Nevertheless, they made sure to close out their 70-minute set with a bang, finishing with classics like “Repetition” from 2011’s Nine Types of Light, “Wolf Like Me” off 2006’s Return to Cookie Mountain and lastly “Staring at the Sun” on their 2004 debut Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes.

Similarly, the gig also marked one of Grizzly Bear’s last performances in support of their fifth LP Painted Ruins, which they released last year on RCA Records, and having already played a two-night run at The Wiltern back in December, this was more of a victory lap than a coming-out party. Unfortunately for us, the five-piece had to cut things short due to the venue’s strict Sunday night curfew, ending on a rather sudden note. That’s just part of the deal at the Bowl, though. For those of us who have to work on Monday morning, it’s actually more of a blessing in disguise than a disservice to the overall concert experience as we’ve come to realize.

After all, any evening under the stars at the Hollywood Bowl feels like a magical one. There’s just something comforting about taking in some live music at one of the world’s most famous amphitheaters, no matter who’s listed on the marquee. And although there’s no telling when Grizzly Bear and TV on the Radio will tour again, let alone together, this was one pairing that we’re glad we didn’t miss before we officially said goodbye to summer.

GRIZZLY BEAR

Setlist:
Southern Point
Losing All Sense
Yet Again
Fine for Now
Ready, Able
Four Cypresses
Sleeping Ute
Two Weeks
Foreground
While You Wait for the Others
On a Neck, On a Spit
Three Rings
Sun in Your Eyes

TV ON THE RADIO

Setlist:
Young Liars
Lazerray
Golden Age
Province
Happy Idiot
Could You
Winter
Red Dress
Shout Me Out
Trouble
Repetition
Wolf Like Me
Staring at the Sun

Dancing the night away with Cut Copy in LA

Cut CopyBy Josh Herwitt //

Cut Copy with Kauf //
The Wiltern – Los Angeles
September 7th, 2018 //

Cut Copy are no strangers to LA. If you didn’t know any better, you might think the synthpop outfit that spawned out of Dan Whitford’s solo DJ project actually lived in the City of Angels.

But the Australian four-piece undoubtedly enjoys coming to California every time it drops a new album, and with the release of their fifth LP Haiku from Zero nearly a year ago now, the past 12 months have been action-packed for Whitford (vocals, keyboards, guitar), Tim Hoey (guitars), Ben Browning (bass, vocals) and Mitchell Scott (drums, vocals).

Cut Copy

For those in LA who missed Cut Copy 10 months ago when they visited the Shrine Expo Hall with De Lux, Palmbomen II and Cooper Saver also on the bill, their headlining performance last Friday at The Wiltern was another chance to dance the night away upon hearing several classics such as “Need You Now”, “Free Your Mind”, “Future”, “Hearts on Fire” and to close, “Lights & Music”. In fact, the last time that we caught them back in March, a mini downpour erupted at Shaun White’s Air + Style (read our festival review here), but it didn’t phase them. Who said playing — and dancing — in the rain isn’t fun anyway?

Nevertheless, Cut Copy always know how to throw one of the best dance parties in the biz, and though they just finished their latest tour with three West Coast shows in LA, Berkeley (supporting Phoenix) and Portland last weekend, it’s plausible that these Aussies could be back in the states next year for some more dates, particularly once festival season officially returns. Until then, this one should hold us over.

Setlist:
Need You Now
Black Rainbows
Visions
Nobody Lost, Nobody Found
Airborne
Living Upside Down
Free Your Mind
Counting Down
Future
Pharaohs & Pyramids
Hearts on Fire
Standing in the Middle of the Field
Take Me Over
Out There on the Ice

Encore:
Meet Me in a House of Love
Lights & Music

Moby might think he’s old, but his 15th and newest album doesn’t sound it at Apogee Studio

MobyPhotos by Brian Feinzimer // Written by Josh Herwitt //

Moby //
Apogee Studio – Santa Monica, CA
March 26th, 2018 //

When Richard Melville Hall released his fifth album Play in 1999, probably much to many’s surprise now, it wasn’t an immediate success. Hall, after all, had hit a bit of a rough patch a few years earlier with his fourth LP Animal Rights, which saw him venturing into punk rock and straying far away from the eclecticism that delivered critical acclaim for its predecessor Everything Is Wrong in 1995.

But Play eventually propelled Hall — or “Moby” as his parents called him due to an ancestral tie to Moby Dick author Herman Melville — to mainstream status like his previous records had never before. Boasting eight singles (yes, you read that right) and selling more than 12 million copies worldwide at a point when music fans were still purchasing CDs, it became the biggest-selling electronica album of all time. Rolling Stone, in fact, has included Play as one of its 500 greatest albums on two different occasions. I don’t know about you, but it’s a masterful piece of work that immediately transports me back to the late 90’s, to a time when groove-oriented electronic music was actually starting to be considered “cool.”

Employing everything from early blues, African-American folk music and gospel to hip-hop, disco and techno on Play, Moby created sounds that our ears had never heard before. Today, he stands as one of electronic music’s, if not simply music’s, most important figures, having worked with David Bowie, Daft Punk, Brian Eno, Pet Shop Boys, Britney Spears, New Order, Public Enemy, Guns N’ Roses, Metallica and Soundgarden over a career that has spanned 40 years to date.

That’s a long time for anyone to be making music, but at the age of 52, Moby hasn’t let it catch up to him. Part of that could be related to his diet (he has been vegan for about three decades now), leaving his longtime home of New York City for sunny Los Angeles back in 2010 and an unwillingness to tour extensively anymore, though his latest studio material doesn’t offer any evidence that he has lost the ability to craft a well-conceived/produced song either.

Moby

On Monday night in Santa Monica, Hall took the stage for KCRW’s Apogee Sessions series in support of his 15th full length Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt, which arrived via Mute earlier this month. The record’s title serves as just another reminder of Moby’s passion for the late Kurt Vonnegut’s work, referencing Billy Pilgrim’s epitaph in Slaughterhouse-Five, but he isn’t the only literary influence who shines through on the 12-track album. The second single “Mere Anarchy” from Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt, in fact, was inspired by a quote from Irish poet W. B. Yeats, someone Moby has been a fan of for quite a while and even more in these chaotic, uncertain times under the Trump administration (as you can see from his Instagram account here, he is also very politically outspoken).

Still, despite all of the negativity that’s out there in the world at the moment, Moby appears to be in a relatively happy place on a personal level. He has been sober for about four years after being a self-proclaimed alcoholic and has owned his vegan restaurant Little Pine in LA’s ultra trendy Silver Lake neighborhood since 2015. And for the past two years, he has also found the time to organize his own Circle V festival as a way to celebrate music, vegan food and animal rights, the latter of which being another cause that Hall has dedicated his life to from an early age. Oh, and did we mention that he had a collaborative LP with The Void Pacific Choir come out last year? When you stack them all up, it’s pretty incredible to see Moby juggling so many projects simultaneously and juggling them all well (props to his manager, that’s for sure).

His guitar playing, meanwhile, may be just as impressive, if not surprising to some. Less than two weeks before Moby stepped into Bob Clearmountain’s diminutive recording studio, I was fortunate enough to catch him the final of his three shows at The Echo, and it was there as he performed a variety of songs from Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt, Play and a few other albums, that I fully realized just how talented he is with a black Gibson SG in his hands. He may be an electronic musician, but unlike a lot of them today, Moby is a musician in every sense of the word. While his vocals at times sound more like spoken word than actual singing, he has found more than capable sidekicks in Julie Mintz (keyboards, vocals) and Mindy Jones (vocals) to assist him in that department. Jones’ ranging voice, in particular, is one that suits his music well, and when you hear her sing, her pipes elevate the song to a whole new level.

Moby is no doubt a quirky guy. He’s not too insecure to make fun of himself, call some of his music “bad” or say what’s on his mind. Having been his friend for more than 25 years, KCRW Music Director Jason Bentley most certainly knew this, but as he traded questions for answers midway through his performance at Apogee Studio, you could tell even Bentley was surprised by how candid Moby was. The small crowd, of course, couldn’t help but laugh, as Moby made a point of telling us that he’s “old” and later on how the music video for his single “We Are All Made of Stars” was a $1 million disaster that never saw the light of day after being played only once on MTV. But as he juxtaposed the trip-hop that permeates throughout his newest album against the more old-school, ambient vibes of his past work, it was Moby who proved that his star, almost 20 years after Play dropped, continues to burn bright in 2018.

Setlist:
The Ceremony of Innocence
Falling Rain and Light
Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?
Porcelain
Like a Motherless Child
This Wild Darkness
The Tired and the Hurt
Extreme Ways
The Sorrow Tree
We Are All Made of Stars

Lo Moon are officially LA’s newest buzz band after their sold-out show at the Troubadour

Lo MoonBy Josh Herwitt //

Lo Moon with Psychic Twin //
Troubadour – West Hollywood, CA
November 16th, 2017 //

If there’s one public radio station in Los Angeles that always seems to have its finger on the pulse of all things music, it’s KCRW.

The NPR member station broadcasting from Santa Monica College has long had a penchant for discovering some of today’s most buzzworthy bands, and since 1977, its signature music program “Morning Becomes Eclectic” has played an instrumental role in maintaining what has been a strong track record for years. In fact, quite a few up-and-coming acts have come out of KCRW’s own backyard, whether it has been indie-rock groups like Silverlake’s Local Natives or solo artists such as Inglewood-bred jazz virtuoso Kamasi Washington.

But the latest group from the City of Angels to catch the station’s eye has been Lo Moon, the atmospheric, yet soulful indie-electronic trio that has only officially released three songs to date. One of them is called “Thorns”, which opened their sold-out show last Thursday at the Troubadour. With KCRW sponsoring the event, Illinois native/now LA transplant Erin Fein’s dreamy, synth-pop project Psychic Twin paved the way for the evening’s headliner, as a half-empty room prior to 9 p.m. turned into a crowded one 30 minutes later.

Despite what they call home right now, Lo Moon don’t consider themselves an “LA band,” at least not yet. All three full-time members — Matt Lowell (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Crisanta Baker (bass, keyboards, vocals) and Sam Stewart (guitar, keyboards, vocals) — arrived in LA from different parts of the world and wrote most of their forthcoming debut LP that’s due out next year in Seattle, a city Lowell says helped shape the album’s overall sound.

Lo Moon

Lo Moon, sonically, can be somewhat difficult to pin down. With a range of influences, their music has drawn comparisons to many of the UK’s biggest bands: Talk Talk, Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Radiohead, Massive Attack and The xx, among others. That’s certainly some impressive company to be mentioned in when you get right down to it, especially for a band that took several months to unveil its second song. But Lo Moon have much more than just comparisons to hang their hat on at this point. The three-piece, for one, has inked a deal with Columbia Records and gotten the attention of former Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Chris Walla, who has since signed on to produce its first full length.

Lately though, Lowell, Baker, Stewart and touring member Sterling Laws (drums) have been hitting the road with some pretty big names, including AIR (read our show review here) and Phoenix, with shows lined up next month as support for London Grammar, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy and The War on Drugs. With those kind of opportunities this early in the band’s career, don’t be surprised if you find Lo Moon listed on the 2018 Coachella lineup in January.

Back at the Troubadour, Lo Moon ran through a number of tracks that we can expect to hear on their upcoming release, performing “The Right Thing” for the first time before closing the set on a high note with “This Is It”, their sophomore single that you could mistake for a Peter Gabriel song if you didn’t know any better. There’s no question Lowell and company have an affinity for synthesizers, and the limited studio material they’ve revealed so far suggests that. But what also makes them stand out is Lowell himself, who offered a poignant solo rendition on the piano titled “All In” to kick off the band’s brief encore.

Of course, as Lo Moon fans know or will come to know, the show couldn’t have ended without the song that started it all: “Loveless”. The sprawling, seven-minute anthem, which hooked a major record label, an A-list producer and listeners all over the world, is what initially put the threesome on the map, and with Laws’ drum rolls delivering one powerful crescendo after the next down the stretch, the crowd came visibly alive like it hadn’t all night. Sure, this may only be the beginning for these guys, but LA’s newest buzz band knows how to shoot for the moon.

Setlist:
Thorns
The Right Thing (live debut)
Wonderful Life
TTMYMO
Real Love
My Money
Camouflage
This Is It

Encore:
All In (Matt Lowell solo on piano)
Loveless