This 12 months, the vacations in L.A. provide the present of reside music that may permit us all to excite or escape our out-of-town kinfolk once they come to the West Coast. We’ve dug up a bit one thing for everybody — from Ok-pop followers to alt-rock lovers and R&B/hip-hop nerds. Take pleasure in our information to 10 must-see concert events to get pleasure from from post-Thanksgiving via the highest of 2026.
The one information you want for vacation leisure.
Iluka, Moroccan Lounge, Dec. 4
This Aussie expat to L.A. has discovered a candy spot of desert-country twang, exuberantly melodic songwriting and rock sass that pairs effectively along with her witchy, suffer-no-fools feminism ( “Crucify Me” has this banger of a refrain: “You like to crucify me / However I’m method too sizzling to die”). Her new piano-brooder of a single, “Exhausting to Love Me,” hits proper within the Adele-shaped gap in pop balladry proper now. This launch present for her album “The Wild, the Harmless and the Raging” — humorous Springsteen riff, that — might be the beginning of one thing a lot larger. — August Brown
KIIS-FM Jingle Ball, Intuit Dome, Dec. 5
The High 40 radio station’s annual vacation live performance options loads of the 12 months’s massive hitmakers, together with Alex Warren, Audrey Hobert, Jessie Murph, Reneé Rapp, Leon Thomas and Zara Larsson. However the true draw might be a uncommon look by Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami — higher generally known as the voices behind “Golden,” the chart-topping pop smash from Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters” that was simply nominated for a Grammy Award for tune of the 12 months. Additionally on the invoice: Conan Grey, Feid, Jackson Wang, the Child Laroi and Sean Paul. — Mikael Wooden
Ben Folds, Blue Notice, Dec. 11
Contemporary off his resignation from the Kennedy Heart after, effectively, all of that, Folds is returning to a extra hospitable venue within the new L.A. outpost of the jazz membership Blue Notice. Folds launched the delightfully titled Christmas album “Sleigher” final 12 months, and this holiday-themed set will doubtless pull from it and his huge pop catalog as effectively. It’s exhausting to picture a cozier seasonal vibe after the terrible 12 months we’ve all had in L.A. — A.B.
The Katseye members. From left to proper: Megan Skiendiel, Sophia Laforteza, Daniela Avanzini, Lara Raj, Yoonchae Jeung, Manon Bannerman.
(Andy Jackson / For The Instances)
Katseye, Hollywood Palladium, Dec. 13
It’s an extended shot for brand spanking new artist at subsequent 12 months’s Grammys, however even making it to the nominations was an enormous step for Katseye, the globe-spanning lady group that’s nominally Ok-pop in its construction, coaching and Hybe affiliation, however yet one more overtly geared to American tastes and sensibilities. Alongside “Golden” and Rosé and Bruno Mars’ “Apt.,” this can be a watershed second for Ok-pop being taken as pop music like another throughout the Recording Academy. Katseye has by no means placed on lower than a killer efficiency in its transient life as a band. — A.B.
KROQ Virtually Acoustic Christmas, Kia Discussion board, Dec. 13
Studying the highest of the invoice right here — Evanescence, Papa Roach, Social Distortion, Rise Towards, the All-American Rejects, Third Eye Blind, Yellowcard — you’d be forgiven for pondering KROQ acquired trapped in a time loop doomed to endlessly repeat the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. However come early for the incongruously booked however supremely thrilling U.Ok. post-punk of Moist Leg and the ferocious Atlanta pop-punk combo the Paradox, who opened for Inexperienced Day and Jack White on the power of just some viral movies. — A.B.
Cameron Winter, Palace Theatre, Dec. 13 & 14
He was simply in Los Angeles for a particularly buzzed-about gig together with his New York-based band Geese on the Fonda Theatre, the place the group reportedly included Bono, Beck and Chappell Roan together with a bunch of report execs keen to begin an old style indie-rock bidding warfare. After Geese’s tour wraps — and earlier than the band’s look at subsequent 12 months’s Coachella competition — the group’s slacker-dreamboat frontman will return to L.A. for a pair of reveals behind his acclaimed 2024 solo album, “Heavy Steel.” — M.W.
4 Non Blondes, Roxy, Dec. 15
Although 4 Non Blondes broke up in 1994, pop music by no means appears to go lengthy with out discovering some new use for the group’s early-’90s alt-rock hit “What’s Up?” This 12 months it was Cardi B and Lizzo’s sampling the tune for his or her monitor “What’s Goin On,” which then appeared to result in a viral TikTok mash-up of “What’s Up?” with “Beez within the Entice” by Cardi’s nemesis Nicki Minaj. Earlier than all that occurred, the group’s frontwoman, Linda Perry — who went on to ascertain a profitable profession as a songwriter and producer for stars like Pink and Christina Aguilera — acquired 4 Non Blondes again collectively for a handful of competition dates over the summer season. Now the band is about to play the Roxy forward of a reunion album that Perry says is due in 2026. — M.W.
Allman Betts Household Revival, Orpheum Theater, Dec. 20
These scions of Southern rock have accomplished proper by their formidable legacy on this supergroup, the place Devon Allman, Duane Betts, Berry Duane Oakley, Alex Orbison and others want no introduction to anybody who nonetheless longs for swampy three-part guitar harmonies. (The double album “Bless Your Coronary heart” might have been in rotation for the late Jimmy Carter). They’re calling in each admirer and collaborator for this vacation present with Robert Randolph, Jimmy Corridor, Dweezil Zappa, Sierra Inexperienced, Cody & Luther Dickinson and extra. — A.B.
Leon Thomas performs onstage throughout a Blond Classes live performance June 3, 2024, in New York Metropolis.
(Jason Mendez/Getty Photos for the blond)
Leon Thomas, The Wiltern, Dec. 22 & 23
Contemporary from half a dozen high-profile Grammy nominations — together with nods for album of the 12 months and finest new artist — Thomas will spend two nights on the Wiltern on tour behind his acclaimed 2024 LP, “Mutt.” It’s a artful retro-R&B disc that reveals off the years of studio experience he accrued behind the scenes as a author and producer for the likes of Ariana Grande and SZA; it additionally reveals a little bit of the ham who acquired his begin as a baby actor on Broadway and Nickelodeon. — M.W.
The Roots, Walt Disney Live performance Corridor, Dec. 31
Three many years after they broke out of the Philadelphia hip-hop scene, Questlove and Black Thought’s hard-working hip-hop outfit is one probably the most dependable reside acts in music: a crowd-pleasing soul-funk groove machine equally at house at a music competition, a supper membership or on the set of “The Tonight Present,” the place the Roots one way or the other nonetheless appear to be having enjoyable as Jimmy Fallon’s home band. Given the group’s ample catalog and Questlove’s numerous A-list buddies, it’s anybody’s guess what they’ll play — or who would possibly put in a shock look — as they ring within the new 12 months at Disney Corridor with two reveals, one at 7 p.m. and one at 10:30 p.m. — M.W.
