Image via A.G. Cook/Instagram
Pranav Trewn finds peace in his vinyl record collection.
Back in March, I launched We Outside with a lament about the state of live music. Since then, I’ve explored the various symptoms of a sickly industry: from the glut of nostalgia tour packages to runaway venue inflation to a corrupted resale market. A running theme throughout this column has been that the overall concert crisis reflects a broader erosion of music curiosity. An adventurous spirit does not pay off for either artists or performers like it used to. That’s why the year’s biggest success stories have been bleak b(r)and resurrections and events that followed the “remember a time” format of Live Nation’s portentous When We Were Young festival – an early warning sign of the cultural drought.
A few notable bright spots emerged. There was the rare human touch behind Pitchfork Festival’s 2024 edition to a broad sweep of civic efforts to restore San Francisco’s post-pandemic nightlife and entertainment. Of course, Pitchfork is now another victim of the year’s festival market contraction, and the political hope for San Francisco continuing their public funding into next year is far from guaranteed. Nor are the early indications for what 2025 will bring particularly encouraging – from My Chemical Romance’s shameless dynamic price gouging to Travis Scott’s mainstream festival reclamation to Warped Tour’s latest return from the grave.
There will be time to further interrogate the causes and effects of these troubling trends, but I want to cap the year by looking to where there is still hope for live music, which is in going to see music live. I watched some 200 artist performances over the year (with a couple more still to come in before the buzzer beater). When I think back to all these shows, I don’t recall the excessive ticket prices, last second cancellations, or missed opportunities. I think about the underground breakouts that punched above their weight on every new stage they played (Spiritual Cramp, Model/Actriz), the cathartic communal sing-alongs to anthems being canonized in real time (Charli XCX, Chappell Roan), and the bucket list icons there was no guarantee I would ever get to check off (Grace Jones, the Rolling Stones).
I think about the 10 performances below that stand out above the rest – the ones that made waiting in 20,000 online queues and paying those monstrous fees a practice still worth running back each time.
10. Sid Sriram – “Sidharth” World Tour | Lincoln Hall, March 4th
The Fremont-raised, Chennai-based Sid Sriram began his training in Carnatic singing at the age of three, and has worked as an Indian playback singer for heavyweight composers like AR Rahman and Ilaiyaraaja for over a decade. That means when he decided to pursue a parallel lane as a Bon Iver-inspired indie-rock band, he came in with technical chops well beyond that of your usual 20-something Brooklynite. Vocal talent is hardly a prerequisite to writing moving songs, but it amplifies the impact when it comes to delivering those songs to an audience. Pulling predominantly from his underrated 2023 album Sidharth, Sriram delivered a quiet storm of thunderous melancholy. He sprinkled in a couple of his cinematic standards into the setlist, every boom and quiver in his melodies equally transfixing in English, Telugu, or Tamil. A voice as expressive as Sriram’s can bypass any language barrier.
9. Sturgill Simpson – Outside Lands | Golden Gate Park, August 11th
Banter? Backdrops? Breaks? Standard concert conventions aren’t a concern for Sturgill Simpson, who did not waste a second of his headlining performance at this year’s Outside Lands that could have otherwise been spent on music. The man treated the show like a marathon, stringing a majority of his set together in a relentless medley that collapsed his wide and accomplished catalog down into a feat of pure sport. Amidst heroic renditions of career highlights like “It Ain’t All Flowers” and “All Around You,” he seamlessly segued into live debuts from his inaugural Johnny Blue Skies album, Passage Du Desir, a savvy selection of covers including Procol Harum and When in Rome, and a Grateful Dead allusion for good measure.
It was the grandest possible warm-up to Simpson’s Why Not? Tour, his first outing in four years. Of course, the unassuming star dressed for the occasion in a crewneck, jeans, and converse – undoubtedly the most casually composed mainstage performer of the weekend, let alone headliner. For Simpson, showmanship rests entirely on the fundamentals. Shred or get off the pot.
8. A. G. Cook – Portola Festival | Pier 80, September 28th
If you’re not looking to drop three figures to see it-girl Charli XCX in an arena, the budget option is catching her go-to producer and hyperpop statesmen A. G. Cook. Having produced many of Charli’s greatest songs, including most of Brat, he rightfully packs his sets with their collaborations. At Portola, Goldenvoice’s shipyard-set dance music fest, Cook ran through all the euphoric classics Charli skipped on the SWEAT tour: “detonate,” “Britpop,” “Mean Girls,” the “Von dutch remix featuring addison rae.”
The crowd went feral at every Charli drop, but they also kept up the energy for every other one of Cook’s sugar rush selections, including from his equally influential friends like SOPHIE and Danny L Harle. I saw a lot of DJs over that festival weekend, but none elicited such an intense life-affirming swell as Cook.
7. Fcukers – Boiler Room | SVN West, September 27-28th
Dance punk is back, baby. Some are bemoaning the youth’s rose-tinted embrace of the turn of the century sound; I don’t know how many times I’ve seen now some variation of “STD Soundsystem” used to refer to the revival’s breakout star, the Dare. However, I was too young for the early days of James Murphy and the Rapture or the common use of “electroclash” as a genre descriptor, so I am pleased that we are finally getting bands as good as Fcukers to carry forward the long misplaced torch.
Better yet is that they are capable of not simply recording primo Williamsburg-in-‘05 vintage jams, but that they can expertly recreate their energy for a room of throbbing, sweaty partygoers. Sitting on a hardly visible stage at San Francisco’s inconspicuous event space SVN West, the trio gloriously vamped through wobbly confections like “Bon Bon” and “Homie Don’t Shake”, and also dropped several excellent new songs that suggest their breakout 2024 is just a warm-up for a wider moment to come in 2025. It’s irreverent, surface-deep music. It also unquestionably fcuks.
6. ANOHNI & The Johnsons – It’s Time to Feel What’s Really Happening Tour | Fox Theater, October 1st
My local social circle is not as deeply tapped into the online critical discourse around indie music, which is something I usually appreciate – except when it means I can’t find any enthusiastic concert companions to watch a musician as storied as ANOHNI perform in support of the best album of last year.
I finally found a friend willing to go in blind on a Tuesday night, who was miraculously not turned away by my description of “climate despair art rock”. But I was nervous, thinking back on my infamous blunder of taking new, unprepared housemates to watch Mount Eerie perform A Crow Looked Like Me at a local church, where halfway through the hour of raw dirges one turned to me with tears down his face whispering “Why would you do this to us?”
Thankfully, ANOHNI offered a more crowd pleasing experience. Albeit no less heavy in the immense beauty of her grief-engulfed poetry, the Johnson’s nine-piece ensemble summoned even the most droning and darkened of ANOHNI’s compositions with a sonorous and uplifting touch. Morbid anthems like “Why Am I Alive Now?” and “Hopelessness” were punctured by ANOHNI’s profound but hilarious interjections and storytelling.
She touched on her friends who succumbed to the AIDS crisis, lessons accumulated from peers and mentors, and the radical act of simply existing as who you are. She received a standing ovation from the crowd, my friend included, both of us changed by a night as resonant on an elemental level as birdsong.
5. Tyler, The Creator – Coachella | Empire Polo Club, April 20th
I was happy for Tyler to be awarded the cultural achievement designation that is a Coachella headliner slot. The man has worked harder than anyone since his breakout with Odd Future to build a left-of-center discography as deserving of critical acclaim as it is suited for superstardom. And yet I wasn’t particularly excited to see him perform myself, having grown a little tired of his devout crowds of rage-ready teens and long-static setlists that haven’t surprised anyone since Flower Boy – especially with the show coming only off of a deluxe edition of his already toured-to-the-ground blockbuster Call Me If You Get Lost. And yet from the moment Tyler exploded out of an intricately designed wood cabin set piece, he subverted all my expectations. Beginning with the almighty “Igor’s Theme,” he launched into a breathless display of backing track-free, born-entertainer virtuosity.
He gave his hits extended intros and unreleased verses, blissfully vibed out with Childish Gambino and ASAP Rocky, and sat at the piano and sang together with the icon Charlie Wilson for a touching six minute rendition of “EARFQUAKE.” But he went beyond stadium rap theatrics to tap back into his youthful Los Angeles roots, burning through old favorites like “Tron Cat” and “Odd Toddlers” (performed live for the first time in a decade). The next week he’d invite Earl Sweatshirt on stage to do “AssMilk” and “Rusty.” Those were the kinds of moments that almost pushed me to say some bullshit like comparing it to “my generation’s Woodstock.”
Cultural significance aside, it was most compelling as simply one of the best live performers in rap music, who sat outside of the “Big Three” beef that had been running this entire summer, proving that anyone not including him in that conversation is simply denying reality.
4. Mitski – The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We Tour | Chicago Auditorium, March 24th
I’ve seen Mitski more times than any other artist at this point. I’ve caught her opening for Lorde and touring on bills with other indie darlings like Japanese Breakfast and Lucy Dacus. She’s an artist I bought stock in her early, but who has frankly been an inescapable presence for anyone who reads music blogs.
In this time, I’ve watched her live show evolve from a solitary electric guitar to a three-piece rock band and up to an even bigger and more tightly choreographed art ensemble. But this latest configuration of Mitski is leagues beyond anything else she’s done yet. For one, there’s eight people on stage, doubling the largest arrangement I had previously seen from her. Secondly, the band has the range to deliver Broadway-ready interpretations of grunge-lite indie rock and transfigure her older lo-fi songs into Americana and country arrangements – or just scale back to let Mitski’s searing vocals do the heavy lifting.
She performs achingly beautiful magic tricks with unassuming stage props: a curtain, chair, mic stand, and some very, very well deployed lighting. It’s been wild to watch Mitski become huge with a new demographic discovering her theatrical rock songs on TikTok. But it’s heartening to imagine this mesmerizing production being a kid’s first concert. Maybe the next generation will turn out just fine.
3. Mannequin Pussy – Pitchfork Festival | Union Park, July 21st
Mannequin Pussy have been leveling up with every album since their first blistering foray into indie rock fame, so it was no surprise that their latest album, I Got Heaven, would also be their best. Even better than the album though is the colossal force of their live show. Bandleader Marisa Dabice is the most charismatic front person working today, delivering the band’s shoegaze-adjacent pit-igniters with a loud bark and deep bite.
She prowls the stage like a possessed marionette. Audiences gaze transfixed on the stage even as they were swirling in the pit. She cooed the word “pussy” in a high-femme taunt to the crowd between songs, daring them to repeat back and feel whatever lingering discomfort they might hold with the heavily politicized term that has forever shaped their band’s perception. It was more punk than any of the machismo displays of abandon from the bands they might have once been lumped with as peers. But in 2024, Mannequin Pussy proved they are one-of-one, a peerless institution of their own.
2. Justice – Coachella | Empire Polo Club, April 19th
Justice are frankly not good enough recording artists to have this good of a live show. The notion of “Daft Punk-lite” has dogged them since they first failed to make good on the promise of their French-house debut. Their latest album is a shiny, well-produced, but ultimately inessential stylistic exercise. And yet, in a production that barely hides its inspiration from Daft Punk’s game-changing pyramid shows, Justice have somehow summed their catalog into a live experience greater than its parts. The videos don’t quite do it justice (pun unintended, but not regretted), but the first time I saw their lighting rigs slowly transform overhead like Optimus Prime unraveling in slow-motion, adding dramatic gravity to their featherweight Euro-rock cheese, I felt like I was at my very first concert all over again.
The rush is that pure and giddy, and it was only compounded when those lights began to shower the stage in undulating hues of gold and orange and blue synced to individual instruments. Draped in white suits and unsmiling, Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé presented a self-conscious projection that what you’re watching is serious. It was so smug, I almost wanted to not like the show out of principle. Instead, I raved to everyone I knew about it, and then went again in the fall.
1. Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us Tour | Greek Theater, June 15th
I almost wrote an entire column a few months back about Vampire Weekend’s viral gimmick this year of doing impromptu fan-requested covers to end each of the shows, which lead to beautifully inane outcomes on websites like Setlist.fm. My thesis was that more bands should show off their live chops with parts of their performances that are not so rigorously rehearsed, but more like friends jamming together in the backyard.
But then I realized, few bands could pull off what Vampire Weekend has done so expertly throughout the year. They not only understand their assignment in pop culture, but have coupled that self-awareness with rock wizard chops no one would have predicted to come from an outfit that formed in the halls of Columbia University. They have invented a new model for a blog rock jam band, with marathon setlists, wild medleys, matinee shows, and a roster of touring musicians unparalleled in their collective synergy.
Most of Vampire Weekend’s contemporaries are treating their shows as touring museum exhibits for nostalgia-hungry thirty-somethings, offering as a value prop simulacrums of their better days. The boys – Ezra Koenig, Chris Baio, and Chris Tomson – however, are approaching their third decade without any rust, with their most vital albums and shows happening now.
