By: Amanda Romankiw

In typical Phoebe Bridgers fashion, the beloved artist spent her Halloweekend playing three sold-out nights in Los Angeles. For “Phoebeween,” the Intuit Dome transformed into a festive abyss of pre-show performances, dancing ghost statues, and fans dressed in their finest costumes.

After a six-year solo hiatus, Bridgers’ highly anticipated third studio album, Lost Weekend, finally graced the world on August 14. Following the immense praise for her first two studio albums, Stranger in the Alps and Punisher, fans seethed with excitement for her next project — and they weren’t disappointed. The sixteen-track record perfectly encompasses complex themes of love, grief, and isolation. Leading up to the album’s release, Bridgers played a series of secret shows across cities known for their extraterrestrial history. With fliers posted the day of each show, fans were in a frenzy and eager to find out what the “Motion Sickness” singer had in store next.

By: Sylvia Ansley

Dinosaur Jr. has maintained an unmistakable and uncompromising sound. Even with their newest release, There Near, 41 years since their self-titled debut album, that nostalgic, cozy, self-proclaimed “Ear-Bleeding Country” sound is instantly recognizable.

Earlier this month, the trio rocked the Bellwether in Downtown Los Angeles. It takes a lot for me to venture into DTLA for a concert, but the venue surprised me by satisfying two of my three incessantly picky requirements: 1. Big GA Section, 2. Air-conditioning. Find me a venue with those two elements as well as an old, ornate style of architecture, and we can talk (I love you Belasco). Filing under the blue neon lights at the perfect moment, we arrived just in time to tuck into the crowd as the band took the stage.

By: Amanda Romankiw

For three nights only, Brooklyn rock band Geese took over one of Los Angeles’ most iconic landmarks, the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The ambiance of Hollywood Forever encapsulated Geese’s inescapable presence and attractive cadence — the grounds were lined with majestic bodies of water and the spirits of Hollywood royalty loomed over the estate, from David Lynch to Judy Garland.

By: Talia Slavin

At The Wiltern, a cozy yet grand and gilded Art Deco venue in Koreatown, the standing crowd thrummed with anticipation as the stage filled with dreamy, undulating light. Julia Jacklin’s stage set was quite bare, save for a large blue gem cutout on the back wall which framed the artist. “Why is there a giant takeout box behind her?” A nearby concertgoer muttered when the house lights dimmed.

After spending a year and a half attending artist residencies and making music at home in Melbourne, Jacklin has found her way back to the stage and is doing things differently. In Jacklin’s fourth studio album, The Gem, she takes the helm of her life by laying waste and starting over, her lyrics sprinkled with classic imagery of regeneration: dying flowers, house fires, and baby birds.

By: Sofia Cardenas

August 2022. One of the final hangouts of the summer before starting my senior year of high school. My friends and I are sitting cramped in a 2008 Scion XD on the way back home from a day at the mall. Out of the brief silence between talking about what we bought and what we were dreading about the incoming school year, my friend, the driver, placed a CD into the car’s head unit. It would be dramatic for me to say that I felt like I saw my world go from black and white to color, but there is truly no other explanation that could encapsulate what I felt at 17 hearing the opening guitars to “Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough for the Two of Us” for the first time. Then came the first pre-chorus:

“And you can cry all you want to / I don’t care how much / You invest yourself in me / We’re not working out“