Could you possibly get any more California than this? No I’m asking an honest question, is it legitimately more possible for a concert to be more California than this.
Look, I know what you’re thinking, it’s something along the lines of “Well yeah, it could be more California, we could have Red Hot Chili Peppers performing their new album Ski Bop Boop Bop California with supporting acts Sublime, But With Even More Weed and Snoop Dogg.” Of course that is more indicative of the image we project of California, the true spirit of California (well, Southern California but is Northern California really California (no, it’s not)) is filled with far more ennui and attachment to old things that haven’t mattered in my lifetime but we pretend they do.
When coming at the show from that perspective (the correct perspective) this is clearly the most California a show has ever been. Lana Del Rey has long been associated with California, given both a. Her chosen name as an artist and b. Her song titled “Venice Bitch.” She encapsulates the sort of longing and ennui that has come to define Angelenos over the past… eternity or so but particularly in the current era of hipster coffee shops and douchey tech bros birding over pedestrians on sidewalks that they aren’t supposed to be on.
Adding to that is Jack Antonoff, who has quickly become one of the most famous rock and pop producers of the modern era after working with bands and artists like The Arctic Monkeys, Taylor Swift, and Lorde to help propel them to entirely new levels of pop success.
On the other end of the equation we land on the Grammys a ceremony that, much like the Oscars and Emmys, purports to be an authority on quality and importance in its industry but is really just a shell of a dying awards show that hasn’t gotten the nominations or winners right in a major category for the past five years at least.
But that’s kind of what makes Los Angeles Los Angeles. It’s a place that constantly pushes itself to the edge, whether that be in art, music, cinema, technology or business and is constantly evolving itself and its image as a city. At the same time it clings onto dead things like it can one day revive them, the Hollywood studio model, tinseltown tourism, and record companies. And both of these things inform one another.
That’s part of what makes this so appealing, it’s a collision of the past and present of Los Angeles, but it isn’t an artist from the present who ignores the past, it’s someone who takes that past, mocks it, cherishes it, and ultimately turns it into her greatest weapon.
Location: The Grammy Museum
Address: 800 W Olympic Blvd A245 Los Angeles, CA 90015
Tickets available starting from $40 – sale begins at 10:30am on Monday 10/7
Photo Credit: Sharon Alagna
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