This 12 months, the vacations in L.A. supply the reward of reside music that may permit us all to excite or escape our out-of-town kinfolk after they come to the West Coast. We’ve dug up just a little one thing for everybody — from Okay-pop followers to alt-rock lovers and R&B/hip-hop nerds. Get pleasure from our information to 10 must-see live shows to get pleasure from from post-Thanksgiving by the highest of 2026.
The one information you want for vacation leisure.
Iluka, Moroccan Lounge, Dec. 4This Aussie expat to L.A. has discovered a candy spot of desert-country twang, exuberantly melodic songwriting and rock sass that pairs properly along with her witchy, suffer-no-fools feminism ( “Crucify Me” has this banger of a refrain: “You love to crucify me / But I’m way too hot to die”). Her new piano-brooder of a single, “Hard to Love Me,” hits proper within the Adele-shaped gap in pop balladry proper now. This launch present for her album “The Wild, the Innocent and the Raging” — humorous Springsteen riff, that — may very well be the beginning of one thing a lot greater. — August Brown
KIIS-FM Jingle Ball, Intuit Dome, Dec. 5The Prime 40 radio station’s annual vacation live performance options loads of the 12 months’s large 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 referred to 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. 11Fresh off his resignation from the Kennedy Middle after, properly, 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 possible pull from it and his huge pop catalog as properly. It’s laborious 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 Occasions)
Katseye, Hollywood Palladium, Dec. 13It’s an extended shot for brand new artist at subsequent 12 months’s Grammys, however even making it to the nominations was a giant step for Katseye, the globe-spanning lady group that’s nominally Okay-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.,” it is a watershed second for Okay-pop being taken as pop music like every other throughout the Recording Academy. Katseye has by no means placed on lower than a killer efficiency in its temporary life as a band. — A.B.
KROQ Virtually Acoustic Christmas, Kia Discussion board, Dec. 13Reading the highest of the invoice right here — Evanescence, Papa Roach, Social Distortion, Rise In opposition to, the All-American Rejects, Third Eye Blind, Yellowcard — you’d be forgiven for pondering KROQ received trapped in a time loop doomed to endlessly repeat the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. But come early for the incongruously booked but supremely exciting U.K. post-punk of Wet Leg and the ferocious Atlanta pop-punk combo the Paradox, who opened for Green Day and Jack White on the strength of just a few viral videos. — A.B.
Cameron Winter, Palace Theatre, Dec. 13 & 14He was just in Los Angeles for an extremely buzzed-about gig with his New York-based band Geese at the Fonda Theatre, where the crowd reportedly included Bono, Beck and Chappell Roan along with a bunch of record execs eager to start an old-fashioned indie-rock bidding war. After Geese’s tour wraps — and earlier than the band’s look at subsequent 12 months’s Coachella pageant — the group’s slacker-dreamboat frontman will return to L.A. for a pair of exhibits behind his acclaimed 2024 solo album, “Heavy Metal.” — M.W.
4 Non Blondes, Roxy, Dec. 15Though 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 observe “What’s Goin On,” which then appeared to result in a viral TikTok mash-up of “What’s Up?” with “Beez in the Trap” by Cardi’s nemesis Nicki Minaj. Earlier than all that occurred, the group’s frontwoman, Linda Perry — who went on to determine a profitable profession as a songwriter and producer for stars like Pink and Christina Aguilera — received 4 Non Blondes again collectively for a handful of pageant dates over the summer time. 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. 20These scions of Southern rock have executed 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 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 & 23Fresh 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 exhibits 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 received his begin as a baby actor on Broadway and Nickelodeon. — M.W.
The Roots, Walt Disney Live performance Corridor, Dec. 31Three a long time 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 pageant, a supper membership or on the set of “The Tonight Show,” the place the Roots someway nonetheless appear to be having enjoyable as Jimmy Fallon’s home band. Given the group’s ample catalog and Questlove’s numerous A-list friends, it’s anybody’s guess what they’ll play — or who may put in a shock look — as they ring within the new 12 months at Disney Corridor with two exhibits, one at 7 p.m. and one at 10:30 p.m. — M.W.
