The Ettes, Sade, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Benefit for Nick Curran

fri 8/19

PHOTO BY JOSEPHCULTICE.COM

Kim Lenz performs at the Benefit for Nick Curran: See Friday.

Davie Allan & the Arrows: See Saturday.

Location Info

Map

Staples Center

1111 S. Figueroa St.
Los Angeles, CA 90015

Category: Community Venues

Region: Out of Town

Photos

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Music Box Cocktail

13114 Downey Ave.
Paramount, CA 90723-2413

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Southeastern Cities

Weber's Place

19312 Vanowen St.
Reseda, CA 91335

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: San Fernando Valley

Photos

Hollywood Bowl

2301 N. Highland Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90068

Category: Music Venues

Region: Out of Town

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Roxy Theatre

9009 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: West Hollywood

Photos

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More About

• Mikael Wood
• Nick Curran
• Paul Rogers
• Hip-Hop and Rap
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

Sade, John Legend

STAPLES CENTER

You won't find a better date night option this weekend than one of Sade's three gigs at Staples Center, where the English avant-soul siren arrives on her first world tour since 2001. Last year's platinum-selling Soldier of Love neatly demonstrated how little the weather had changed on Planet Sade since 2000's Lovers Rock; rest assured she won't blow your mind with any radical rearrangements tonight. She may blow your mind in other ways, though: Even with a generation of R&B smoothies having grown up under her influence, nobody digs more deeply into matters of the heart than this icy-hot philosopher-queen. One of those R&B smoothies, John Legend, opens the show. Also Sat. and Sun. —Mikael Wood

Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q

MUSIC BOX

Yeah, we'll say it: Compton's finest is L.A.'s rawest, best lyricist. His latest album, Section.80, is more thematically cohesive than his previous work, but that's too cold an analysis for a rapper who rips his chest open in the booth. Spitting (literally) over a freebasing jazz beat or shouting out Long Beach Boulevard's never-dared-to-dream girls, Lamar didn't make the feel-good album of the summer; he made a record for those who love hip-hop but hate the rappers in it. Though Schoolboy Q will bare his teeth and growl his lyrics, he's best when he's slouching through a song, easy charm and clever punch lines rolling off his tongue. The two together are serious trouble. Expect a host of special guests — the hometown heroes have plenty of friends in high places. —Rebecca Haithcoat

Benefit for Nick Curran

WEBER'S PLACE

It was thought that former Fabulous Thunderbirds guitarist Nick Curran had beaten back cancer after being diagnosed last year, but when it was announced that the disease had returned this spring, his friends decided to pitch in to raise money for his expenses. Luckily, he has some pretty talented friends, including hillbilly duo Dave & Deke, brooding rockabilly singer James Intveld and the Blasters' Phil Alvin and Bill Bateman. Curran has backed the late rockabilly legend Ronnie Dawson and also fronted his own groups, including the Lowlifes and Nick Curran & the Nitelifes, and he's been a longtime collaborator with fiery Texas rockabilly dynamo Kim Lenz, who'll provide some roots-rocking catharsis with songs like the sadly appropriate "That's the Breaks." —Falling James

Z-Trip, De La Soul, Nosaj Thing, Daddy Kev

HOLLYWOOD PALLADIUM

Local DJ/producer and professional party monster Z-Trip is bringing his traveling dance carnival back home. The cross-country tour, with dates featuring LL Cool J, Four Tet and DâM FunK, is like a discerning hip-hop mash-up come to life, with the best of old-school and innovative youngsters along for the ride. As if De La Soul wasn't enough to get your ass on the floor, mad scientist Nosaj Thing's sonic experiments conjure images of DJ Shadow on a bender with Tangerine Dream. With Low End Theory's Daddy Kev in tow, this night basically guarantees a full day of postparty recovery watching a Top Chef marathon. —Drew Fortune

The Glitch Mob, RJD2

CLUB NOKIA

Former Low End Theory associates The Glitch Mob are a three-man DJ crew — ediT, Ooah and Boreta — who've probably found the biggest audience of any artist to rise from the L.A. beat scene. Their "Animus Vox" got 10.5 million viewers in one sitting as a backing track on an episode of America's Got Talent. They dropped debut album Drink the Sea last June and returned a year later with EP We Can Make the World Stop and a massive tour. Since then, they were featured on this year's Tron Legacy: R3C0NF1GUR3D remix album and in a Captain America trailer, and once again hit the road on a colossal 35-city tour, stopping tonight with RJD2. —Lainna Fader

Fantasia

HOLLYWOOD BOWL

The Disney animated classic is not just a visual feast, it's also a hugely inspired collection of much of the last couple of centuries' greatest music. On a trivia note, when Igor Stravinsky was asked about using The Rite of Spring for the film, he offered to compose a new piece for Disney — which turned him down! (Stravinsky despised Leopold Stokowski's reorchestration and restructuring of his piece, but how many of the film's fans ever knew the difference?) Tonight it will be projected on the Bowl's big screens, including unfinished segments of the film, accompanied live by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, with the splendidly stylish John Mauceri conducting. And yes, there will be a fireworks display. Also Sat. and Sun. —John Payne

Also playing:

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE at the Greek Theatre; WOODEN SHJIPS, THE NIGHT BEATS at the Echo; THE WATKINS FAMILY HOUR at Largo; I SEE HAWKS IN L.A. at California Plaza; BLEACHED, RAW GERONIMO at the Smell; RANDY ROGERS BAND at Troubadour; ROBBY KRIEGER, RAY MANZAREK, DAVE BROCK at Whisky A Go Go; THE LEWD, RF7 at the Redwood.

sat 8/20

Sunset Strip Music Festival

SUNSET STRIP

Despite some valiant recent efforts (Hinder, Avenged Sevenfold), no band has better mastered debauchery as a brand than Mötley Crüe. That and bassist Nikki Sixx's pop-in-metal-clothing songwriting make this Sunset Strip–synonymous band utterly worthy as both SSMF headliners and honorees. [See Page Two.] Bush get beat around as Brit Nirvana-bes, but this lazy labeling insults the quality of their early tunes; sheer commitment as a live force; and a frontman (Gavin Rossdale) who still provokes mass panty-wetting. Hype-man Flavor Flav may have dragged Public Enemy's name through the reality-show mire, yet they remain a vital, vitriolic hip-hop power that will have SSMF's security earning their checks. PE's pioneering embrace of rock influences (including collaborating with Anthrax as early as 1991) makes them far from incongruous on this guitar-y bill. —Paul Rogers