2 Much Live Music: A November to Remember

While I was on the East Coast for Hulaween (more on that in a bit), I flew up to New York City for a few days to catch up with family and friends. And while I was in the Big Apple (and had my camera with me), I figured I might as well try to catch a show.

Luckily, Robert Plant’s Saving Grace at the Brooklyn Paramount delivered.

It was my first visit to the Brooklyn Paramount (a beautiful, old theater, with design elements reminiscent of The Wiltern in L.A.), and my first time seeing the Led Zeppelin legend with his latest outfit. It’s always a pleasure to hear Plant sing Zeppelin — including “The Rain Song,” an all-time favorites — and it was an absolute treat to add some shots of one of the most iconic musicians in rock n’ roll history to my camera roll.

Read more about the show here.

In a span of less than a week, I had the privilege of photographing Queens of the Stone Age twice. As much fun as QOTSA’s traditional rock show was at SEMA Fest in Las Vegas, their performance for “The Catacombs Tour” at the home of the Oscars in Hollywood was truly one of the most special shows of 2025.

Amid a year filled with remarkable orchestral reimagining — from King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard to Cypress Hill and even Dave Grohl with the LA Philharmonic at Coachella — QOTSA took the theme to a whole new level with their blend of haunting theatricality and song arrangements meant for the souls haunting the notorious Catacombs of Paris.

Read more about The Catacombs Tour here.

Speaking of theatrical concert productions at the Dolby…David Byrne damn near brought the house down during his two-night stint in Hollywood as part of his Who Is The Sky Tour.

With a 12-piece ensemble of singers, musicians and dancers around him, the former Talking Heads frontman put on an imaginative performance comprised of songs from his catalog that told a story of challenges and triumphs from life during and since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read more about Who Is The Sky here.

There would be no missing Tame Impala’s three-night run at the Kia Forum. Kevin Parker’s performances are always audiovisual masterpieces, and the “Deadbeat Tour” was no different.

If you like lasers and lights laid over live music, this was THE show for you. And if you’re a fan of Tame’s evolution into psychedelic rock that can keep the club bumping, this might’ve been the concert of the year.

I’d heard about Hulaween for years, from Florida friends who swear by it, and been eying it for almost as long. This year, I finally got to check it off my bucket list, and what a Happy Hula it was!

Besides camping with an awesome group (our site featured a kiddie pool filled with Squishmallows), the music and the vibes were truly special. Outside of Burning Man, I can’t think of another festival with such a distinctive culture that lives and breaths with the attendees — from costumes and gifting to campground activities and beloved rituals, including the nightly stream of bats from the Bat House at the Spirit of the Suwanee Music Park & Campground.

With The String Cheese Incident as the organizing force behind Hula (and their SIX sets of music to match), it was no surprise to see so many stripes and shades of jam music on display.

Day 1 brought Sierra Hull, the ascendant mandolinist, together with The Infamous Stringdusters for a scintillating performance that even Cheese’s Bill Nershi had to get in on. That same Spirit Lake Stage also hosted moe., a mainstay of the jam scene, for consecutive sets.

Halloween saw Pigeons Playing Ping Pong and (of course) Cheese jam out on the main Meadow Stage, with psychedelic instrumentals from SunSquabi across the way at Hallows Stage. Saturday was packed with spectacular jams: Grace Bowers and The Hodge Podge rocking out, Arc De Soleil and Glass Beams mesmerizing with their globally inspired riffs, Dogs in a Pile wailing deep into the night, and Cheese putting on a disco bonanza at “Club Transylvania” for their annual Shebang.

(Not to mention plenty more disco courtesy of Franc Moody and Parcels.)

Even though Cheese was done by Sunday, their successors in the jam world held it down to close out the weekend…and then some. Molly Tuttle rocked out to match her Harley Quinn costume, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead shredded through an extended set of Grateful Dead classics, Goose let loose for two sets on the main stage, and Daniel Donato stole the weekend with his festival-closing exhibition of Cosmic Country.

But Hula wasn’t ALL jams. The fest also ran heavy on bass music — from Jade Cicada, Mersiv and Tape B, to LSZee, Zeds Dead and a headlining set by Illenium — with a variety of EDM contributions from the likes of Sammy Virji, Tinlicker and DJ Pee . Wee (aka Anderson Paak).

The REAL showstopper of the weekend, though? The annual spectacle of light and sound over Spirit Lake. The theme of this year’s show: “The Radiant Veil.” For all the time I spent traversing the fest to catch as much music as I could, I always made time at night to sit and stare out at the captivating projections onto a wall of mist over the lake — and couldn’t recommend more highly that any and every future visitor to Hula do the same.

If you’ve ever been curious about Hulaween (and can handle a bit of dusty camping in your life), I couldn’t recommend it more highly. With any luck, this fest will become an annual Halloween celebration on my calendar.

2025 marked the 60th anniversary of The Grateful Dead, with celebrations spanning from Sphere in Las Vegas to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

To honor the Dead’s six pioneering decades, I put charcoal pencil to paper in order to welcome Bob Weir into The Charcoal Club.

Special thanks to my buddy Brandon Weil for letting me use one of his photos of Bobby as the basis for this piece.

Check out my Etsy shop for Bobby-themed merch (as well as the framed original), along with listings featuring all of my designs — just in time for the holidays!

And be sure to follow The Charcoal Club on Instagram, TikTok, X, Threads and Facebook.

(Also, if you’d like to commission me for a custom piece, please reach out! A direct reply to this email will do.)

More womps than a Peanuts holiday special.

Katie Crutchfield (aka Waxahatchee) joins forces with her sister to form a new indie-rock outfit.

Zac Brown brings his brand of country to the world’s most mind-blowing venue.

A little bit country, a little bit rock n’ roll at the Fonda.

California indie folk comes home to downtown L.A.

Nothing brings holiday cheer quite like a lineup that features The All-American Rejects, Papa Roach, Rise Against, Third Eye Blind, Wet Leg and more.

Musical legacies collide with all-star support in DTLA.

Jurassic 5 alums follow up Christmas Day with an intimate show in Highland Park.

Funk your way into the New Year with Robert “Sput” Searight, Nate Werth, MonoNeon and company.