LIVE REVIEWS
The Novo in Downtown Los Angeles has long been recognized by locals as a theatre for emerging musical acts to make their mark. Its staging is not over-the-top, nor is it undersized, but on Saturday night, the indoor club transformed into a portal of opulence for one woman: Argentine singer-songwriter Nathy Peluso, who made the most of this space, and very clearly demanded more of it.
In the span of 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, including nods for best alternative song (for “El Día Que Perdí Mi Juventud”), best rap and hip-hop song (“Aprender a Amar”) and best long form video (“Grasa”). Continuing the celebration, Peluso set out on a European jaunt and her first tour dates across the United States.
Considering Saturday’s show was Peluso’s second-ever performance in the city, in addition to being the final bow of this tour, L.A. fans were primed and ready. The general sections — comprised of a wide demographic of all ages and descents (Peluso sings in Spanish, English and Italian) — of the venue turned into dance floors as concert-goers mimicked what they saw: Peluso airly prancing 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 follows 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.
Peluso didn’t need backup dancers or any elaborate quirks to make this show feel as big as it did. In fact, the longest Peluso left the stage was less than a minute. In these cases, you can easily pick up on the relationship an artist has with the music or narrative they’re presenting. For Peluso, who sings and dances and acts with a palpable swagger, it seems she’s completely engrossed in a colorful world of her own making, and is overjoyed by having us watch.
While the audience caught their breath, Peluso remained remarkably composed, and described the tour as feeling “like a movie — it’s all been like a movie,” she concluded. “My story is short still, but thank you for being here with me now."
LIVE REVIEWS
Arriving at The O2 for the first night of Radiohead’s London residency, we walk in under Stanley Donwood artwork lining the walkway and the lines of the band’s bleak modern chant “Fitter Happier” printed on a huge banner hanging from the ceiling of the former Millennium Dome. The moment instantly brings back memories of walking into Oasis’ Live “25” tour earlier this summer. This is the other major rock return of the year and the atmosphere carries a different kind of excitement, yet the intensity feels just as real. Instead of bucket hats and throwing drinks into warm air, we have cold weather and a slow shuffle through the night to gather in the dark. Toniiiiiight, I’m a pig in a cage on antibiotics.
It almost feels unreal that nine full years have passed since Radiohead’s last album, the rich and sorrowful “A Moon Shaped Pool”, and that they have not toured since 2017. In between, we have seen several side-projects, including Ed O’Brien’s overlooked but inspired solo run as EOB and the way Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood nearly recreated Radiohead’s spirit under a different name through the sharp jazz-rock of The Smile, as well as a wave of controversy.
After performing in Tel Aviv in 2017, questions grew louder about the band’s connection to Israel as the horrors of the genocide in Gaza intensified. Attention landed on Greenwood’s collaboration with Dudu Tassa, an Israeli musician who has played for the IDF, and on Yorke’s later comments responding to criticism. The guitarist had joined anti-government protests in Israel, where his wife is from, and the band recently made their views clear again by speaking out against Netanyahu’s regime, insisting that music should be something that unites people from every culture. That idea guides the show tonight, where there is no sign of protest or boycott.
The audience surrounds the stage, which sits in the center to create a more personal and absorbing feeling than most massive arena shows ever manage. A flickering vocoder opens the room and builds tension before the band walk out and jump straight into old-school territory with the raw guitar gloom of “The Bends” opener “Planet Telex”. It is one of many choices designed to thrill the crowd from a group not always associated with this kind of approach, and the packed venue screams back “everything is broken. why can’t you forget?” as a shared release against everything falling apart in the world around us.
With a “busking approach” guiding the tour, the band rehearsed more than 70 songs and have performed around 43 so far, so this is not the predictable hit conveyor belt of Oasis’ shows. It feels refreshing to never know what is coming next. The setlist leans heavily on the treasures from “OK Computer” and “In Rainbows” and gives equal space to the once-dismissed but now appreciated “Hail To The Thief”. It creates a kind of Radiohead-style hit parade, without “Creep” of course, and includes the occasional glammed-up oddity to let the show breathe.
There is the roaring political fear of “2+2=5”, the huge and aching sweep of “Lucky”, the pulsing electronic rush of “15 Step” and the joyful sing-along of “No Surprises” anchoring the early part of the performance. This section also includes “Sit Down. Stand Up.” with a new soft happy hardcore ending, “Bloom” from the fragile “The King Of Limbs” that now carries a brighter neon energy, and “The Gloaming” flowing into “Kid A”, giving the night a moment to sink before everything intensifies again.
There is not a single chance for a toilet break from that moment onward. From the gentle pain of “Videotape”, to the wild three-part surge of “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” into “Idioteque” and “Everything In Its Right Place”, to the guitar-driven “In Rainbows” songs and the massive first-act finale of “There There”, every moment lands exactly how a Radiohead fan would hope. The visuals also look spectacular.
Then we reach the reward of a seven-song encore that reads like fantasy on paper, complete with the newly viral “Let Down”, a playful return to “a song we wrote on a freezing cold farm in 1994” with the indie powerhouse “Just”, and the huge final blow of “Karma Police”. This show becomes the cinematic and artistic contrast to Oasis’ carefree chaos, capturing that feeling of “standing on the edge” and letting everything wash over you. The entire night carries a fierce energy and a well-judged sense of scale, offered with warmth and intention, and Yorke leans fully into his rockstar presence as the band rotate around the stage to engage each part of the arena. For a group that once cringed at the idea of “arena rock”, no one performs it better. A new album and another night like this would be welcome as soon as possible.
‘Planet Telex’
‘2 + 2 = 5’
‘Sit Down. Stand Up.’
‘Lucky’
‘Bloom’
‘15 Step’
‘The Gloaming’
‘Kid A’
‘No Surprises’
‘Videotape’
‘Weird Fishes/Arpeggi’
‘Idioteque’
‘Everything In Its Right Place’
‘The National Anthem’
‘Daydreaming’
‘Jigsaw Falling Into Place’
‘Bodysnatchers’
‘There There’
‘Fake Plastic Trees’
‘Let Down’
‘Paranoid Android’
‘You and Whose Army?’
‘A Wolf at the Door’
‘Just’
‘Karma Police’
