Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, David Byrne and More

Whatever innovations may go down in the concert business, it rarely feels like the wheel is being entirely reinvented — until you go to a David Byrne show. Fans going into his “Who Is the Sky” shows already had some idea of just how untethered to tour norms these concerts might be, based on the previous round of touring that was captured in the “American Utopia” documentary. But everything about his 2025 outing seemed ratcheted up to transport us somewhere that felt a lot more magical than any description you could possibly come up with for an intimate yet dazzling mixture of dance, rock and multi-media wizardry. The show’s seven musicians traveled about the stage with as much cordless choreography as the seven dancers, on a wrap-around LED set that was about as impressive in its transportable way as Las Vegas’ Sphere. It’s a tour that’s high-tech but even higher-human, with the troupe’s sounds and movement making every nerve ending you’ve got feel suddenly newly receptive to joy and possibility. The most common sentiment we heard in the lobby? “That was the best concert I’ve seen in years.” The tour resumes in North America in late March through mid-May; it’d be worth a plane flight and a scalped ticket to catch. —Chris Willman

For those who missed out on the “Renaissance” world tour (and its accompanying concert film, now a victim of lost media), Beyoncé didn’t entirely abandon its theatrics for her “Cowboy Carter” revue. Instead, she incorporated some of it into the broader world of her three-act opus, this time exploring the tropes and themes of country and Americana. The “Cowboy Carter” tour wasn’t just a spectacular (though it should be stated, it absolutely was), brimming with highly choreographed performances and hair-raising vocal runs; it was also a history lesson, a reinforcement of the care and research that Beyoncé brings to any one of her projects. At the tour’s opener in Los Angeles, Beyoncé debuted an experience with resonance, one that somehow raised the bar even higher. —Steven J. Horowitz

Lady Gaga debuted a maximal version of her “Mayhem Ball” show as a Coachella headliner in April, leaving some Little Monsters wondering what she had left in the creative tank for an arena tour of her seventh album. And the opening show at Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena may have shrunk the stage show, but lost none of the scope. For over two hours, Gaga grappled with the dichotomies of life and death, of light and darkness, whether it meant squaring off against the Gaga of her past or confronting the nature of celebrity as she writhed in a sandbox. By the end of the night, she had stripped away all the artifice and reemerged to take her final bow in a Cramps t-shirt and beanie — a reminder that Gaga will always be Gaga, no matter the context. —Horowitz

There may never have been a better production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s 55-year-old classic than the one put on to perfection for three nights this summer at the Hollywood Bowl. For once, Judas and Jesus were evenly matched, solving a problem that has often vexed a classic where the antagonist arguably gets a juicier role than the King of Kings. The fix for that: casting a queen among queens, Cynthia Erivo, as Christ. Her “Gethsemane” was the single most transfixing musical moment I saw on a stage in any context this year. But Adam Lambert, as God’s own foil, was no slouch, and not just because he appeared to be about 10 feet taller than Erivo. He was as born to wail “Heaven on Their Minds” as Judas was to take that bag of coinage, in this libretto’s take on tortured predestination. Further helping the show defy gravity: orchestrations and conducting from one of Erivo’s partners in “Wicked”-ness, Stephen Oremus. If only we could get a reprise of this practically fully staged “concert presentation” in 2026, this time with cameras set up to catch it for posterity. —Willman

There was a T-shirt on sale at the Bowl’s merch booths for this show bearing words guaranteed to bring a laugh among the intended audience: “The Banjo: woke since the 1600s.” For years, Rhiannon Giddens has been on a not-quite-one-woman crusade to educate the world about the Black roots of her primary instrument, which came to America via the slave trade. It’s serious stuff, but she also has a sense of levity to go with the gravity of that mission. And so we got an all-star Bowl blowout, focused to a large extent on the pride of its contemporary Black practitioners, with an overdue reunion of Our Native Daughters, her banjo-picking supergroup with Allison Russell, Amythyst Kiah and Leyla McCalla. It also had Steve Martin as one of the featured guests, performing with and without recent bluegrass partner Alison Brown, interrupting his own expert picking with well-honed comedic material about how the banjo has been a source of shame for some of his fellow white people. In the entire history of the instrument, there may never again be a night as starry or wonderfully holistic as this delightful culmination of the banjo’s humble journey through the diaspora to the Hollywood hills. —Willman

It arrived at noon, with no advance warning: “PAUL McCARTNEY ROCKS THE BOWERY 5:00 Doors
6:30 Showtime; Tickets on sale now only at Bowery Ballroom box office. First come, first served.” Yes, the ex-Beatle, who normally headlines arenas if not stadiums, would perform at one of New York’s most intimate venues that night. And for the 575-odd people who crammed into the building, it was a night worth screaming over. At 6:44 p.m. on the nose, the band — led by McCartney — walked onstage and launched straight into “A Hard Day’s Night,” soaring through a two-hour-ish career-spanning set, from 1963 (“From Me to You”) to his 1970s solo hits and even last year’s “final” Beatles song, “Now and Then.” In between were big crowd singalongs on “Hey Jude” and “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da,” romps through “Get Back,” “Jet” and “Got to Get You Into My Life”; deeper cuts like “Letting Go” and “Mrs. Vandebilt”; acoustic songs like “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and a solo “Blackbird.” McCartney was in strong voice — stronger than he was on “Saturday Night Live” 50 th anniversary show later in the week — and kept up a steady stream of banter with the audience throughout the show. “This has been a blast — we’ve looved it,” he said as the band left the stage, speaking for every lucky person in the room. —Jem Aswad

A combo tour by two of the most vital artists working in the hip-hop/R&B realm is inevitably going to be both long and not long enough — when both artists can easily play two-hour-plus sets on their own, obviously you’re not going to hear every song you’d like. But Lamar and SZA both delivered in diminished circumstances (which were diminished even more by light rain and 55-ish degree temperatures), with the former bringing his full-size GNX car and a battery of dancers, and the latter bringing several props from her insect-themed latest tour and her own crew. Both leaned heavily on their latest albums but brought out classics like “King Kunta,” “Humble,” “DNA,” “Money Trees” and “Alright” (Lamar); “Love Galore,” “The Weekend,” “Broken Clocks” and even her song covered by Rihanna, “Consideration” (SZA); and of course several numbers performed together. Stadium shows are tough for any artist, but this formidable double bill delivered. —Jem Aswad

Among the album titles the band left untouched over the years was “Who’s Crying,” but that could have served as an unofficial name for the Who’s farewell tour, which had fans coming prepared for one final head-bang to “Substitute” and winding up unexpectedly weeping to “The Song Is Over.” These last shows provided a highly satisfactory answer to questions we might have had going in, like: Should they have turned in their badges just a tour or two sooner? Would Roger Daltrey still be able to hit the high notes at 81? Can Pete Townshend still athletically tilt at windmills at 80? Those issues fell by the wayside early in the Bowl performance, but the real bowling over came when they got to “Love, Reign O’er Me,” with Daltrey delivering those climactic howls as well and as cathartically as he ever did, against all odds. “That always fucking blows my mind, Rog,” said Townshend, in what felt like a spontaneous compliment. At the end, the two surviving mainstays lingered on stage; the song was over, but the banter wasn’t, quite. “It’s so ridiculous, doing this farewell tour,” Townshend said, “‘cause we’re still learning how to do the fucking thing.” “One day we’ll be good, really good,” promised Daltrey — even as they both swore that this really was it. We will get fooled again, but we won’t ever see these guys’ likes again. —Willman

Other recent pop outings like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour may have bigger emotional dynamics, but when it comes to pure, unadulterated bliss, nothing delivers as constantly as the nonstop, highly energized morphine drip that is a Dua Lipa show. You already knew that, if you caught the barely-post-pandemic “Future Nostalgia” tour a few years ago, and if we don’t have quite as much pent-up frustration to exorcise now as we did then, her tour behind “Radical Optimism” still let us feel like we’ve been waiting years to exhale as contentedly as we could during these couple of hours of breezily choreographed fun and dames. Each night on her international outing had a geotargeted moment, and at the end of a week-long run at L.A.’s Forum, Lipa brought in no less a local than Gwen Stefani to duet on “Don’t Speak.” But there was no higher point than the steady stream of songs from the underrated “Radical Optimism,” presented with a crowd-pleasing spirit that made that album title feel not like Pollyanna-ism but a real, actual thing. —Willman

Going to see Alpert on this tour involved coming to grips with some “wait a minute, what do you mean” issues. Like: Wait a minute, what do you mean Alpert hasn’t done a fully Tijuana Brass-themed tour since he and that group practically owned America in the 1960s? And wait a minute, what do you mean, Alpert is freaking 90? Honestly, this show would have been nearly as enjoyable even if Alpert had just come out as a figurehead and played or sung a few occasional bars while the newly assembled version of the Brass resumed where a previous crew left off more than a half-century ago. But he remains fully equipped to lead the charge, as the trumpeter anyone of a certain age recalls from their stereo consoles and TV tube sets, and as a raconteur able to tell just the right amount of stories about the days when his border-crossing pop instrumentals were in every home. A succession of film clips from yesteryear reinforced the vintage chic that made this tour surpass even whipped cream as a delight. He was already an ongoing contender for coolest guy alive, but deciding to resurrect the “Lonely Bull”/”Taste of Honey”/”Mexican Shuffle” era for our benefit in 2025 just about cinched it. (The don’t-miss tour resumes in January.) —Willman

The fact that it took more than 25 years for Brandy and Monica to stage a joint headlining tour after the success of their duet “The Boy Is Mine” was enough to raise the stakes to the galaxies. Yet the R&B singers, long rumored to be at odds, gave the people what they wanted at one of several Los Angeles stops on “The Boy Is Mine” trek. That meant trading off stage time to run through their extensive discographies and the dozens of hits between them, the type of performance where you’re reminded of just how impactful each artist has been over the decades. The fact that they did it together this many years into their careers — and at the highest level — made it all worth the wait. —Steven J. Horowitz

They didn’t quite play it all night long, but more than 50 musicians performed more than 30 Warren Zevon songs at the kind of tribute for which the words “long overdue” are barely sufficient. The Wild Honey Foundation typically puts on one of these tribute shows every year to benefit autism causes, and their Zevon salute brought in a few of the man’s co-workers and contemporaries — namely, his original producer, Jackson Browne, and his most frequent co-writer, Jorge Calderon — as well as acolytes like Dwight Yoakam, Shooter Jennings and Fountains of Wayne. Billy Valentine’s extended take on “Accidentally Like a Martyr” as a soul song, alone, was worth the price of submission to these four hours of homage. Kudos to music directors Jordan Summers and Nick Vincent, the Johnnies that struck up the band. A month later, Zevon got inducted into the Rock Hall at last, but this felt like the real ceremony. —Willman

Chappell Roan made Elton John an honorary member of the “Pink Pony Club,” placing a fringe-laden, pink cowboy hat upon his head as she dueted with the legend at his annual Oscar night party in West Hollywood, practically kitty-corner from the nightspot that inspired her signature song. Although Roan’s hour-long set with her all-female band included the most popular staples of her catalog, she celebrated the occasion with some value-added Elton content — starting with an earnest solo rendition of “Your Song.” Later, she called John himself up from his table to the stage, where they traded vocals as he played piano on “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” before rounding the night out with a version of “Pink Pony Club” that had Elton enthusiastically joining in on vocals. Her rapt adoration as she gazed at him was touching, if not as sweet as the giddy glee that took over Elton when he got that hat. Seeing the music world’s eldest and youngest gay superheroes consummate a love affair on stage was a gas. —WIllman

Tyler Childers made remarks more than once during his sold-out Hollywood Bowl debut that it was surprising that so many southern Californians would turn out to see a Kentucky hillbilly, or words to that effect. But most of us are past the point of being surprised now that a mass audience has taken to what could easily have been envisioned, within the wider expanse of popular entertainment, as niche. The straight country bits were wildly entertaining exercises in high-minded shit-kicking, but it was quickly apparent why he holds such appeal for fans of singer-songwriters or jam bands. Things really took a turn during the closing minutes of the Bowl show, when a Hare Krishna devotional chant was followed by a rare, one-time performance of one of his most famous songs, “Long Violent History,” in what seemed to be a nod to the “no kings” protests happening that week. He’s one complicated holler-dweller. —Willman

It would be hard to overstate just how much emotion a majority of the capacity crowd for Oasis’ two Rose Bowl shows had invested in this resurrection. Thinking back on some of the other acts who have headlined the venue over the years, it was as if the Rolling Stones, ‘N Sync and Billy Graham somehow all joined forces and came back to lead an ecstatically cultish mass-scale rock ‘n’ roll ceremony, reaffirming for the elders in the audience that they are not nearly dead, and initiating the younger enthusiasts in a kind of Britpop bar-or-bat mitzvah. Near the end of their two-hour performance, Noel Gallagher had the visuals team train a camera on a young woman in the front whom he said had been weeping throughout the whole show, and indeed, she looked like she’d been directly transported from the Ed Sullivan Theatre in 1964 to this spot. Looking around at the tens of thousands of other punters, there was no shortage of similar rapture, if not occasional tears. If this stuff tended to get written off back in the ‘90s as phony Beatlemania, it certainly hasn’t bitten the dust. —Willman

Halsey’s “For My Last Trick” Tour was one of this year’s most impressive pop road shows — and really two tours in one, joined at the hip. The first half of the show was a highly stylized succession of Broadway-style setpieces, with drastic changes in scenery, costuming and choreography from one production number to the next, plus lots of filmed content, in the tradition of elaborately theatrical tours by Taylor Swift or Madonna. But in the second half, Halsey delivered a straight-up rock ‘n’ roll show, offering highly charged versions of her greatest hits with a smoking band and hardly anything in the way of unnecessary adornment. Whether you favor an elaborately designed conceptual show or a back-to-basics, club-worthy concert, Halsey was able to offer a canny combination of both. We actually reviewed her in three different swings in SoCal this year, as she returned in the summer to do a tour-closing free-for-all show at the Yamavaa’ resort, then brought a “Badlands” 10th anniversary tour to Hollywood Forever in the fall. At all three shows, it was clear Halsey is as good of a young rock star as we’ve got going right now. —Willman

The brutalist design of the just-unveiled new Los Angeles County Museum of Art has been controversial. But for an opening attraction, the museum’s overseers could not have picked anything less polarizing than Kamasi Washington‘s three-night stand, which unfolded in the still-empty gallery spaces — an epic-scale performance by more than a hundred musicians that came off as the symphonic-jazz equivalent of a home run. The new David Geffen Galleries, which will not open for art exhibition purposes until April 2026, encompass 110,000 square feet, and nearly all that expanse was filled with the sound of music during Washington’s 90-minute sets. There were 10 different staging areas for different groups of musicians from one end of the amoeba-shaped structure to the other, all performing elements of “Harmony of Difference,” an existing suite that the saxophonist-composer expanded for this hyper-unusual live premiere. Attendees were encouraged to walk around and hear overlapping variations on the same pieces being simultaneously performed by a choir, two string sections, a woodwinds section, a brass section and four other full jazz septets on top of the one that included the composer himself. A stunt? Absolutely. A stunt that happened to work as a gorgeous, experiential tapestry? That, too. —Willman

Not to make this into some kind of AARP tract, but: Are there any figures in American music more inspirational than these two? It was true when they were still mere sprouts of, like, 64 and 72, but all the more so now that they are seriously defying gravity at 84 (for Dylan) and 92 (for Nelson). They played the Hollywood Bowl as a stop on their Outlaw Music Festival tour, just as they had the summer before. They may count as half of a living Mount Rushmore of music, but they are not up there just as the objects of your national-monument tourist gaze: They are embracing the spirit of each night’s moment in an accomplished and downright frisky way that most younger achievers can only aspire toward. (Although, to give credit where it’s due, most of the younger acts they’ve picked as openers, like Billy Strings and Sierra Hull at the Bowl, seem like the type of kids who can and will absorb these lessons.) Dylan is still rearranging his classics, but in a fashion that seems particularly crowd-pleasing now — you’ll enjoy that your favorite song of his suddenly sounds more like a Dire Straits or Johnny Cash classic. Willie doesn’t mess with the material much, of course, but that doesn’t make his ability to pull off transcendent acoustic guitar solos any less absorbing. —Willman

As Dead & Company returned to Sin City for a second residency, the question on the minds of many fans was, of course, what, if anything, had been updated for 2025 after a groundbreaking run in the world’s most advanced concert venue the summer before? The answer was: just enough to still make Sphere seem as fresh as it ought to, without reinventing the orb. The video design of the ’25 show still followed much the same template as ’24, with the same spectacular bookends (from Haight-Ashbury to deep space and back again) and a return of some of those favorite visualizer setpieces … but with maybe 30-40% new eye candy… a refresh, but far from a total reset. On a given evening, you might be privy to a fun, giant-sized reenactment of the Grateful Dead’s “Mars Hotel” album cover, or a skeletal Uncle Sam’s motorcycle trip to the Vegas Strip. But the core of the show remains the American beauty of the band’s music. That goes for John Mayer’s graceful, alternating duels with Bob Weir and pianist Jeff Chimenti, and it goes for percussionist Mickey Hart’s nightly drum solo, which now, with mind- and butt-bending haptics in the seats, counts as one of the greatest live experiences you could have, even apart from the rest of the show. —Willman

Haim‘s tour finale at the Santa Barbara Bowl was full of reassurances. First of all, it was good to see for certain that Alana Haim’s head looks just fine, and completely intact, after her recent appearance in an Oscar-contender film led to a bad end for her minor character. Secondly, the band is sounding better than fine. The only squib marks left on anyone were on the almost 5,000 patrons who braved one of the most refreshingly moderate ocean breezes California has to offer to see maybe still the best homegrown group California has had to offer in any recent year. To paraphrase their frequent partner in crime, Paul Thomas Anderson: One banger after another! Seriously. The “I Quit” tour’s simple but smart production design included a ticker that mostly flashed “I quit” messages relating to the songs about to be performed, or to positive meanings that could be drawn out of such a negative-sounding phrase. Like: “I quit apologizing.” “I quit regret.” “I quit bad kissers.” “I quit envy.” “I quit saying I’m okay.” “I quit your shit.” (And, on the wittier side, “I quit clothing,” right before Danielle sang “All Over Me,” the band’s lustiest song.) The only thing audience members had to be resigned to, meanwhile, was sheer pleasure. —Willman

Part of what makes the Weeknd such an enduring force is that he has a sound that’s specifically his own — line up the parade of hits he’s had over the past decade and he’s a reliable throughline. The Weeknd is such a gifted performer that he absorbs every sound and song into his orbit, accentuated by the theatrics he stages around it. At one of the four stops on his “After Hours Til Dawn” show, which has been going since 2022, he created a demonic world rife with blasts of fire, shrouded dancers and a larger-than-life golden statue that centered the whole show. At the start of his career, the Weeknd was subsumed in mystery, his identity largely kept a secret. Years later, seeing him in plain sight as he led a maximalist spectacle only proved that showmanship can captivate at any scale. —Horowitz

For one night only, fans lucky enough to snag a ticket to the 10th anniversary show of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Emotion” got to experience the high highs and emotional depths of her definitive album. The singer delivered a spot-on, beginning-to-end performance of the record that elevated her from one-hit-wonderdom to pop auteur. Jepsen was joyous and jubilant as she revisited songs like “Run Away With Me” and “Boy Problems,” keeping the arrangements simple and the theatrics light. It was an ephemeral celebration of an album that has since grown canonical roots, and hasn’t lost any of its charm. —Horowitz

The story of the Beach Boys is a story of family, obviously, in all its ups and downs. As a latter-day corollary to that, anyone who went to see Brian Wilson’s “solo” shows over his last quarter-century of performing couldn’t help but notice that a chosen family had built up in his inner musical circle — one that put on a fantastic show and supported him even when he was being most affected by his physical and psychological issues. It felt like it would be a shame if that band fell apart after Wilson’s death… but, like family, it is carrying on. And carrying on gloriously, as a matter of fact, with fellow Beach Boy Al Jardine now stepping up as their jovial and capable leader, if just one of several guys carrying out those lead vocals every night. What is now being dubbed “the Pet Sounds Band” isn’t just keeping the legacy alive for its own sake; they are brilliantly keeping those arrangements alive into the future, just like a good symphony orchestra would do with a classical repertoire. Maybe Daddy never has to take the T-bird away after all. (At the Cerritos show, pictured above, “Weird Al” Yankovic and Eric Idle joined in the fun.) —Willman

“You know, Ronnie Hawkins used to say, ‘If this show business thing doesn’t work out, by the time I’m 80, I’m gonna look for another line of work’,” said T Bone Burnett, getting chatty with an audience in the back room at McCabe’s Guitar Shop, where he was doing a sold-out six-show run. “I’m getting close to 80,” Burnett (who’s 78) continued, zeroing in on his punchline. “And I thought, ‘You know what I’d be great at, is being an influencer.’ Don’t you think? Like, I’m gonna influence the fuck out of you tonight,” he promised. The crowd at McCabe’s could consider itself properly influenced. For his first tour in 19 years, Burnett picked places to play that count as proper listening rooms, even if the size of the venues didn’t provide the supply to meet all the demand for his return. With guitarist Colin Linden, fiddler-mandolinist David Mansfield and bassist Dennis Crouch in tow, Burnett strung us along with repartee and wisdom in a parlor performance that just happened to feature the greatest string band in the world. —Willman

Paul Simon wrapped up his official farewell tour seven years ago. There was reason to believe he had valid reasons for marking that as his real goodbye to road shows, and not as the kind of fake-out retirement that so many performers cash in on and then renege on. But he has found solutions to the issues that might have kept him off-stage. On his 2025 “Quiet Celebration” outing, he was sounding… yes, softer (as promised in the tour title!) but, really, undiminished. We’ve never had a better reason to be glad someone went back on their word. The tour’s name didn’t mean it was an all-acoustic outing, although that was the tone of the first half, when Simon and his band played back his most recent album, “Seven Psalms,” front to back. In the second act and encores, we got 15 catalog selections, including some tunes that count as rabble-rousers by Simon standards; the evening did turn into a party, despite his best intentions to keep it down. He sounded like an 83-year-old choirboy, and how fortunate were we to unexpectedly get to share his sanctuary again? —Willman

Lucy Dacus has a voice that just feels like home, in some comforting and abiding way, even when she’s addressing uncomfortable truths. And so it makes sense that the set design for her “Forever Is a Feeling Tour” has some elegantly homey aspects to it, from the giant throw rug she sings from to the actual couch that is brought out for a more acoustic segment of the show. Behind Dacus and her band is a backdrop of picture frames that sometimes displayed ambitious art pieces, as if we were in a gallery, and sometimes endearing illustrations of the musicians, as if we were just in her living room. Naturally, Dacus played a lot of her prior solo material, plus her most masterful Boygenius contribution, “True Blue.” But it was the unabashedly open-to-love moments from her latest album that left the most touching impression. Extra points at the show we caught in Nashville for using that couch segment to bring out fellow indie-pop queer icon Joy Oladokun for “Bullseye,” a duet that really did hit it. —WIllman

He was “Traveling Alone,” and loving it, at least in the sense that Jason Isbell was hitting the road as a solo artist for a first-time national acoustic tour, reflecting the formal solitude of “Foxes in the Snow,” his first true solo record. Some fans or critics have made the point of saying “Foxes in the Snow” is Isbell’s “Nebraska” equivalent, but one crucial difference is how much finger-picking goodness this expert lead guitarist brings to his acoustic playing, versus the more elementary strumming of a Springsteen. So even if you’re a fan of the 400 Unit sound (as presumably every extant devotee of his is), this solo tour felt like optimal Isbell, with the clarity of music and lyrics that the honed-down, zoned-in solo format allowed. —WIllman

They don’t really make folk heroes any more — as in, you know, heroes who play folk music. So, despite occasional promises of another Great Folk Scare, Jesse Welles is close to being a one-man phenomenon right now. And he’s up to the task, judging from this galvanizing show at the Troubadour, where the venerable club name really fit for once. He performed the first three-quarters of this tour stop stop solo-acoustic, then was joined by two musicians to form an electric power trio for the last fourth, before going it alone again for the encore. By now you probably at least know that he’s become an online sensation for his topical songs, like a Dylan who never felt trapped by the pressure to keep speaking to the moment. And his words pour out in torrents — how does he get through a gig like the Troubadour’s without a prompter for those thousands of quickly spun lines? Biting irony meets better brain chemistry in Welles, one of the most exciting additions to the pantheon of obvious career artists who are just getting started. —WIllman

Wilson got the CMAs’ top Entertainer of the Year prize yet again in 2025, after being given the year off the previous year, and it’s hard to imagine they won’t keep giving it to her again and again, she so exemplifies every stated and unstated criterion for the trophy. At the Forum, she was well into the first of what will certainly be many, many arena tours, looking and sounding like she’d already been headlining at that level for as long as she’s been alive. The Dolly comparisons might seem tiresome, but they’re worthy — the swaggering rockers and the glitz of her rhinestone-cowgirl outfits are never going to outshine the homespun brilliance that really comes to the fore when she does an acoustic segment. Extra credit on this tour for bringing along Kaitlyn Butts as her opening act, and onto her stage during the headlining set, as rare proof that in star-level mainstream country as well as elsewhere, sisters can be doing it for themselves. —Willman

In the parlance of Van Morrison, an Allison Russell show is a true “did ye get healed?” experience. Just as much as it’s a concert, her performance feels like an activation… in the old-school, spiritual sense. There was a bonus to the delayed gratification of this tour, which was originally set to begin in 2023, before she took on an unexpected Broadway role: She brought “Hadestown” with her. That’s literally, in how she closed the show with a cover of that production’s “We Raise Her Cups.” But it’s also in the sense of how much she seems to have grown physically as a performer through her short but sure turn on Broadway. Taking a rooting interest in Russell almost feels bigger than investing in just one artist, when she represents the best of what music could be and sometimes is, with that stunning voice as a trigger for righteous anger, empathy, self-understanding and forgiveness. —Willman

Among his pop peers, Charlie Puth is certainly one of the most studied and technically proficient musicians in his graduating class. He made sure to put those skills to the proper test at the beginning of his Los Angeles residency at the recently opened Blue Note, where he staged eight shows across four nights this past fall. Throughout the 75-minute set, he revisited some of his biggest hits — “Attention,” “See You Again” — and reframed them in a jazz context, melting the often rigid boundaries of pop structure and making for a loose yet altogether precise performance. —Horowitz

Finding the ideal artist to reopen the historic Plaza Theatre in Palm Springs might have seemed like a tall order, at least if the 89-year-old venue’s new operators wanted to touch every possible important base for a refurbishment-celebrating gala. Someone whose concert repertoire touches on vast decades of musical and show-biz history, but who also happens to be utterly and unmistakably of the moment? An acclaimed classicist of sorts, and, by the way, a current superstar? There is really only one needle in that haystack, and they got her: Cynthia Erivo. In a night focused mostly on standards, the “Wicked” singer-actress got in plenty of time with the full brassiness of the 20-piece-plus Palm Springs Pops Orchestra but also doing numbers that stripped things down to a four-piece jazz combo or even just piano accompaniment. It was a show that felt epic or quietly in-your-face from moment to moment, exactly the dynamic range you’d expect from the Erivo you already know from the big screen. She didn’t just settle for songs like “At Last,” in any case, though she could nail that; she and her pianist also pulled out surprises like an 11-minute jazz improvisation that stunned the house. The world outside of Palm Springs should be so lucky as to get a full tour of this, but Erivo is off to play Dracula in London. —Willman

So, you say you like melodies? A bit of manna from a more euphonious heaven arrived this spring in the form of “What the World Needs Now: The Burt Bacharach Songbook Live in Concert,” a multi-artist outing that couldn’t have been better-cast, with Todd Rundgren as perhaps the only true marquee attraction but plenty of other voices who do the catalog just as much justice. And it was especially solidly anchored, with Bacharach’s longtime music director/conductor, Rob Shirakbari, making sure that everything sounded exactly as you’d hope, even with a fairly modest lineup of nine players and/or singers on most nights. Rundgren’s vaunted Philly-soul side was appropriate for the many ballads he fronted. But two leading ladies also killed it: Wendy Moten sounded like she was Dionne Warwick, almost as much as Tori Holub was a live ringer for Karen Carpenter. Every great pop composer should get a tribute this expert and adoring, even if few would deserve it this much. —Willman

Some performers’ repertoires lend themselves to an orchestral treatment better than others, and these two country-adjacent-but-not-really-country artists could not have been better suited to a night with the Nashville Symphony. Maggie Rose spent the year further coming into her own, no longer Nashville’s best-kept secret, as she shared stages with jam bands and even appeared at the MusiCares salute to the Grateful Dead with friend Jim James. But it’s her own music that most deserves the spotlight, whether it’s the more solemn material of her “No One Gets Out Alive” album or her alternately sprightly and feisty new EP, “Cocoon.” To know her is to be knocked out by her, and the orchestra didn’t overpower her but rather offered a majestic turbo boost. Her encore segment with the Secret Sisters, harmonizing on “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” made you wish they could take this trio act on the road. —Willman

The new Blue Note club in Los Angeles would merit its existence if for no other purpose than to serve as an occasional landing spot for a few nights’ worth of investor Robert Glasper. The jazz world in L.A. can not, or at least should not, survive on the Catalina alone, and having a new room with vibe and international pedigree to spare may count as one of the most significant cultural developments in the city in 2025. Glasper brought up the rear of the year with a multi-night stand that included the kind of guest appearances only he could draw, from Stevie Wonder to, on the night that we stepped in, the inestimable Lalah Hathaway and a show-ending set-within-a-set by Lupe Fiasco. But Glasper and band would have been worth the cost of admission even if it was just his comic banter making a cameo appearance. On the night I attended, I was practically ready to go home after Isaiah Sharkey turned in one of the most intense electric guitar solos I’ve ever heard in my lifetime; with Lalah up next, I was of course happy not to have been so hasty. —Willman

When titans of music meet on stage, it tends to be pretty scripted, or at least rehearsed. And the meeting of Twain and Carlile at the latter’s annual Girls Just Wanna Weekend festival in Mexico was planned out, up to a point, with Shania bringing Brandi out midway through her headlining set for a mutual lovefest that included harmonizing on “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “From This Moment On.” But what is undervalued about Twain is just how loose she can be as a performer, which usually evidences itself only in her interplay with audience members. Having one of her own current musical heroines join her on stage, Twain was determined not to waste This Moment, adding an impromptu duet of “I Will Always Love You” before landing the plane with “Party for Two.” What a delight, at this nearly all-women festival, to celebrate two female icons getting their pop-country freak on together. —Willman

By the time Ivan Cornejo signed his first major-label record deal with Interscope at the age of 19, (the result of a bidding war), .the música mexicana artist and Southern California native was already known as a defining voice for Gen Z Latinos, thanks to his emotive songwriting and unique blend of regional Mexican and alternative rock music. When he appeared at the Kia Forum for two nights to play material from his Billboard 200-charting (No. 17) “Mirada” album, Cornejo signaled some of influences with a pre-concert playlist that included Billie Eilish, the Marias and Tame Impala, along with nostalgic classics like Bobby Pulido’s 1995 hit “Desvelado.” You wouldn’t necessarily identify Cornejo as a rock star, but there are certainly commonalities. He left a lot of room for solos and power chords from the electric guitar, which is at the core of his three-album catalog. You can easily recognize a song is his by the twangy inflection of his voice. A defining quality of the best música mexicana artists is their ability to sing clean register breaks with a whining tone and with great force — Cornejo is no different. The night went without long speeches but he did take the time to address his L.A. fans directly, emphasizing the importance of community and to “stay strong during these rough times.” —Thania Garcia

Are we in a golden age for acoustic music? You’d just about have to think so, if you saw Jason Isbell’s solo tour this spring, or the outing from Welch and Rawlings. More than six months into touring behind their excellent 2024 joint effort, “Woodland,” their Wiltern show was a reminder not just of what an influence they’ve surely been on someone like Isbell, but how they remain the unshakable queen and king of folk or folk-adjacent music. Of course, while Isbell and some of their other contemporaries might dip their toes in and out of a purely acoustic mode, Welch and Rawlings have been keeping it quiet for close to 30 years now. Every once in a while, they threaten to go electric, but thankfully, it never quite seems to completely take. The mystery in the timeless tales they tell generally does work best on a lower boil, even as nothing electrifies quite like Rawlings’ 1935 Epiphone, when he really lets his fingers do the amplifying. For an encore, the L.A. audience got a pretty rare bonus: their fantastic version of the Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” which turned the dynamic duo from Deadheads into Feed-Your-Head-heads for a few minutes. —WIllman

Jon Batiste is renowned as a band leader; that goes without saying when that was his literal job description for years on the Colbert show. But he might be even better as a one-man band. He has done a handful of solo shows in what are normally symphonic settings in support of his 2024 album “Beethoven Blues (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1),” and this was the musical polymath at his very best, with no backing band to funk up the proceedings, and not even allowing himself any between-song commentary to let his force-of-personality take over. (Not to worry, his frequent grin still does some audience gladhanding.) His epic opening number, “Symphony No. 5 Stomp,” lasts less than two minutes on record, but was expanded out to about 10 times that in concert — a tour de force of classical, jazz and even discordant sounds melded together in such exhaustingly improvisational fashion that it felt like a concert unto itself. It did go on — and he did bust out the melodica, as well as the human voice, for some of his trademark material — but we’ll never forget how he flipped a lid on Ludwig. —Willman

“We’re all holding up pretty good, huh?” asked Charlotte Caffey early into the Go-Go’s’ performance Wednesday night at the Roxy, where the full, founding fivesome was playing a public show together for the first time in more than seven years. It was unclear whether she was just referring to the band members, or to the more collective us, which included a good amount of O.G. fans. But the short answer either way was: Good God, yes! That certainly went for the band, sounding as good as they ever have, and went for the part of the audience that’s been along for the ride, too. To hear vintage girl-power anthems like “Skidmarks on My Heart” and “How Much More” performed this muscularly at this late date was to feel… upheld. (And not just because the packed-beyond-capacity crowd at the way-oversold Roxy didn’t allow an inch of space for slouching.) This was the start of a practice run for their Coachella shows, but the best possible way to recapture the glory was by leaving a skid mark in WeHo on the way to Indio. —Willman

“Longevity was never a major concern of ours,” said Bob Weir, getting a big chuckle out of the audienceas he accepted an award, along with other members of the Grateful Dead or their family members, at MusiCares‘ annual Persons of the Year charity gala. Be careful what you don’t wish for: Weir is still out there 60 years later slugging it out — happily, as far as anyone can tell — with the offshoot group Dead & Company, whose mini-set climaxed this black-tie-optional evening downtown. Their performance followed tribute segments by artists as varied as Noah Kahan, Billy Strings, Vampire Weekend, the War on Drugs and Maren Morris, in front of a house band assembled by Don Was. Many of these were memorable, but John Mayer turned in what was easily the night’s most riveting performance — a nearly 12-minute version of “Terrapin Station,” performed in acoustic trio format on the B-stage, with the kind of solos that further proved that Mayer was the best and only pick to fill Jerry Garcia’s shoes in any fashion. —Willman

The last time Megan Moroney headlined in L.A., she kept remarking, it had been at the 500-capacity Troubadour, and now, two years later, she was filling the 5,900-seat Greek two nights in a row. With demand to spare: Tickets on resale sites for the two shows in the weeks leading up to the shows weren’t going for much less than $300, even in the cheap seats. This was a leap for Moroney that counted as, locally, at least, a coronation. Probably the last time we heard a womanly roar this loud and this sustained during a concert there was when Olivia Rodrigo made her first headlining appearance there. On this night, aside from when Moroney slipped in a Brooks & Dunn cover most of the crowd was too young to know, nearly every word was sung along with at top volume, as if this were a slimmed-down version of the Eras Tour in which Taylor’s country era was still the only era. It’s no surprise that Moroney is making a quick return to L.A. in early 2026, this time at the Crypto Arena. Bring your earplugs, not for what will be coming out of the PA, but for just how reliably the crowd can be counted on to shout back clever rhymes that speak directly to them. —Willman

From Post Malone to Lana Del Rey, sometimes it can seem like the whole world is going Americana, if not country. Yola is headed the opposite direction, and that’s actually pretty wonderful. The Bristol-born singer made a huge impact in 2019 with the decidedly Americana-leaning album “Walk Through Fire,” but wasn’t been singing any of the material from that on her current tour, instead focusing on her recent EP, “My Way,” which introduces a marked change of direction. The nightly covers really show where her heart’s at: Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love,” Yarbrough & People’s “Don’t Stop the Music,” Rene & Angela’s “I’ll Be Good,” Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy”… In short, the European import who was introduced to us skewing toward American roots music was making it clear that some of her truest roots are in R&B, where she can find the most proper setting for her inner and outer Tina. On top of that, nobody’s a more entertaining between-song storyteller. —Willman

Robert Plant likes to share. He proved it with his two albums in tandem with Alison Krauss, he proved it before that by inviting Sandy Dennis onto a Zeppelin track, and now he’s doing it again with an album and subsequent tour where even the marquee gives equal billing to his band Saving Grace and co-lead singer Suzi Dian. There’s no doubt he’s the commander in chief on these shows, but he has too great a sense of music history as well as British decorum to do anything but promote the fact that this latest folk-rock discursion is a village effort. You know there’s a segment of the audience that would love a bit more than the taste of the classic catalog he gives them, yet there’s no sense that anyone leaves these vastly satisfying shows hungry. There’s no greatness like modest greatness… Also, extra credit for indulging his love of rockabilly by bringing L.A. veteran Rosie Flores along as opening act. (The U.S. tour resumes in March and April.) —Willman

The Grammy Museum stage lends itself to more intimate performances, as your usual 200-seat room does. But there was nothing stripped-down when Wet Leg took to the stage for one of the museum’s last programs of the year. They put on pretty much an abbreviated version of the show they’d done at the Greek a couple months earlier; I’m not sure they even turned the volume level down from 1100, in making the transition. And it was a glorious thing, even if there had never been such a comical sight at the home of the Recording Academy than 200 attendees all simultaneously reaching into their pockets or purses to search for something to stick in their ears. The best part was having the performance preceded by a Q&A — conducted by “KPop” singer Audrey Nuna — in which Rhian Teasdale came off as the most soft-spoken, unassuming singer in the world. Watching her suddenly transform into a roaring lion was a glee-stirring example of just what a magic trick music can be. —Willman

In some ways, among musicians whose catalogs are not chock-full of universally recognizable hits, Jill Sobule‘s catalog is exceptionally well-suited for a tribute show. The late singer-songwriter’s songs are universally clever, vivid, high-concept, direct, usually (but not always) funny and instantly relatable. The truth of just how instantly her material comes across in any setting was born out when McCabe’s produced the first in a series of nationwide celebrations of her music legacy, just one month after her tragic passing. (A second, equally good L.A. tribute was held at Largo a month after this one with an entirely different cast.) A superb lineup included Dan Navarro, Willie Aron, Cindy Lee Berryhill, Steve Postell, Amy Engelhardt, Perla Batalla, Jesse Lynn Madera, Lisa Loeb and Tom Morello. But among the biggest standouts were Kay Hanley and Michelle Lewis, who covered Sobule’s last song — which managed to be one of her most notorious — “JD Vance Is a Cunt,” and Margaret Cho, who found just the proper mixture of comedy and pathos in the classic unrequited-love lament “Mexican Wrestler.” Which is not to say that the real star of the night sang at all; that would have to be “I Kissed a Girl” video star Fabio, who sweetly came out just to say that his heart, like all of ours, was broken. —Chris Willman

Downtown L.A.’s Novo transformed into a portal of opulence for Argentine singer-songwriter Nathy Peluso, who made the most of this space, and very clearly demanded more of it. In a nearly two-hour showcase, Peluso nimbly maneuvered from genre to genre, with no limit on the number of twists: poignant power ballads, razor-sharp raps and salsa sequences with elements of Brazilian funk, EDM and bachata scattered throughout. The setlist reflected the best of her catalog but placed a shining light on “Grasa,” Peluso’s 16-song LP that won three Latin Grammys last year. Peluso airly pranced across the stage during the salsa portions of the evening for songs like “Mafiosa,” “Puro Veneno” and “La Presa,” with the latter featuring a theatrical delivery from Peluso calling out to la policia and dancing against a makeshift cage. Peluso followed these red-hot moments with emotional shifts. Before you know it, she’s on the floor, her body sloped across the carpeted steps of her stage design. And all throughout, her vocals never flounder — her vibrato is as honeyed and robust as it is on the floor as when she’s standing upright, nor does it tremble when her hips sway to “Erotika,” a lavish and erotic salsa reminiscent of the genre’s ’90s classics. For Peluso, who sings and dances and acts with a palpable swagger, it seemed she was completely engrossed in a colorful world of her own making, and was overjoyed by having us watch. —Garcia

“Let’s go to WeHo in the meantime” doesn’t have the same ring to it, but legendary singer-songwriter and longtime Tennessean resident John Hiatt returned to his old haunts in L.A. to be serenaded by a parade of boldface admirers at the Americana Music Association’s annual Grammy eve salute to a legend. The combination of classic material and an A-list of artists from multiple generations would have been enough to melt anyone’s icy blue heart. At this late date, you might think you don’t need to hear one more person cover his “Have a Little Faith in Me,” but that would have been before you heard Michael McDonald do a spectacular version of it at this event that made it seem brand new again; his gospel rendition really did turn it into a faith-based ballad. Other highlights included turns by I’m With Her, Little Feat, Cedric Burnside, Joe Henry, Robbie Fulks, Joe Bonamassa, Tom Morello (yes, he solos with his teeth even when he’s covering Hiatt), Shemekia Copeland, Maggie Rose, Lyle Lovett, Milk Carton Kids, Los Lobos, Brandy Clark (pictured above) and more. You could call it a murderer’s row that the AMA is able to round up for these L.A. tribute shows each Grammy season, or you could say that, in this case, they brought the family. —Willman

There comes a time in nearly every veteran performer’s life when they consider the question: Would it be all right to give the audience what they want… i.e., the early, funny stuff? (Or early, furious stuff, in Costello’s case?) Actually, most musicians give in to that pretty early in their careers, but Costello has been far more idiosyncratic than most. He has, however, focused in recent years on reviving some of his and the Attractions’ flashpoint material in concert, so he was really just formalizing that — and yes, heading out on the road without worrying about supporting a new album — when he dubbed this 2025 tour “Radio Soul!: The Early Songs of Elvis Costello.” Keeping the setlists mostly limited to a revolving door’s worth of songs from his 1977-86 period still gave Costello plenty of breadth to play with. He was able, for instance, to revive a version of “Deportees Club,” from the undervalued “Goodbye Cruel World” album, as a bittersweet implicit tribute to all those currently getting kicked out of the U.S…. even as he found some guitar funk to make a hit like “Everyday I Write the Book” rock more than the original did. Steve Nieve still brings the keyboard wit, Pete Thomas still brings the raw drumming power and not-so-recent conscript Davey Faragher is as ever a bassist for all Elvis-ian seasons. On the night we caught them in L.A., Trump had just bombed Iran, and no commentary was necessary other for Costello to offer a very rare show-opening “(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding” (don’t worry, he also still closed the concert with it, too), followed by “Waiting for the End of the World.” So, even limiting himself to his feisty early days, rock’s most brilliant songwriter has a song for every occasion. And it doesn’t hurt when every occasion is as dystopian as it is now. —Chris Willman