The best live music venues in Los Angeles

Normally we cry a little bit heading into Coachella season because we know it means withstanding the desert sun, choking on dust, squeezing through crowds, waiting in line for food and punishing our feet for three packed days (look, we’re old, alright). But with Coachella postponed until October, we’re shedding a single tear because we won’t be able to do all those things this spring. But you’ll still be able to get a taste of Coachella on April 10 at noon, when the 2020 edition of the desert music fest would’ve kicked off. That’s when Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert, a behind-the-scenes retrospective of the annual event, will premiere on YouTube. The latest trailer for the documentary includes snippets of interviews with past performers like Ice Cube, Moby and Jane’s Addiction frontman (and Lollapalooza founder) Perry Farrell. But more enticingly, it teases clips of performances from seemingly every major act in recent years: Beyoncé, Paul McCartney, Travis Scott, Madonna, Radiohead, Childish Gambino, Post Malone, Billie Eilish, Daft Punk and Travis Scott, just to name a few. It also revives a few moments we’d nearly forgotten about (the Tupac hologram!) and includes a clip of the late Huell Howser’s visit and interview in 2008 with festival founder Paul Tollett (seriously, go watch that episode of California’s Gold). So start pulling together your Couchella essentials for when the documentary premiere next Friday at noon, from the comfort of your own couch. In the mea

UPDATE (3/10): Goldenvoice has officially postponed both Coachella and Stagecoach until October. Here’s the festival organizer’s full statement:  At the direction of the County of Riverside and local health authorities, we must sadly confirm the rescheduling of Coachella and Stagecoach due to COVID-19 concerns. While this decision comes at a time of universal uncertainty, we take the safety and health of our guests, staff and community very seriously. We urge everyone to follow the guidelines and protocols put forth by public health officials. Coachella will now take place on October 9, 10 and 11 and October 16, 17 and 18, 2020. Stagecoach will take place on October 23, 24 and 25, 2020. All purchases for the April dates will be honored for the rescheduled October dates. Purchasers will be notified by Friday, March 13 on how to obtain a refund if they are unable to attend. Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to seeing you in the desert this fall. An updated version of our original story appears below. We thought a then-pregnant Beyoncé having to defer her headlining slot in 2017 was the biggest thing that could ever hamper Coachella, but, well, here we are: Coachella 2020—as in, yes, the entire two-weekend fest—has been postponed. On Monday night, multiple outlets (including Billboard, Variety and Rolling Stone) cited sources who said that this year’s music festival, which was scheduled to take place April 10 to 12 and 17 to 19, was in talks to be pushed b

Whether you couldn’t land tickets to Coachella before they sold out or simply didn’t feel like emptying your bank account, you’re in luck: A taste of the desert music fest is coming to L.A.  Each spring, Goldenvoice, which puts on Coachella, gathers some of the fest’s sub-headliner acts for a string of club and theater shows mostly in L.A. and Pomona during the days leading up to and between the two weekends of Coachella. At this year’s local Coachella shows—which we still affectionately refer to as Localchella, despite being officially billed as “Goldenvoice Presents April” for years now—FKA Twigs, Disclosure, Doja Cat, Hatsune Miku, Princess Nokia, Alec Benjamin, Yaeji, Mura Masa and more are all set to perform at local clubs like the Roxy and the El Rey, as well as spots a bit to the east like the Fox Theater Pomona and the Glass House, plus more far-flung locations like the Santa Barbara Bowl and Pappy & Harriet’s. There’s even a mini fest of sorts, dubbed Chella, taking place at the Riverse County Fairgrounds with Cuco and Chicano Batman. Tickets for two shows (Hatsune Miku as well as Tanya Tucker and Orville Peck) are already on sale, but the rest go on sale on these three dates: February 21, 28 and March 1, all at noon. There are also a couple of TBAs on the schedule that go on sale in a couple of weeks—there’s one at the Fox Theater Pomona that could be a pretty big name judging by the venue, so stay tuned for more info. UPDATE (3/5): Run The Jewels, Martinez Brothers

We’re still a couple of months away from music festival season, but we’re already deep into its hype-building harbinger: lineup announcement season. That continues today with the radio-friendly lineup drop for Virgin Fest, the reentry into the festival scene from Richard Branson’s travel and hotel company of the same name. Lizzo, A$AP Rocky, Anderson .Paak, Major Lazer, Ellie Goulding and Kali Uchis will top the fest’s inaugural SoCal outing, which takes place at Banc of California Stadium and Exposition Park on June 6 and 7. Virgin Fest is attempting to define itself by adopting an “all are welcome” ethos, from booking a majority-female lineup down to relabeling general admission passes as “fan tickets.” No matter the name, though—and unlike Virgin’s earliest forays into stateside fests—this one will cost you: Fan tickets start at $229, with multiple tiers of VIP upgrades available, as well. (Don’t worry, though: Everyone will have access to complimentary Wi-Fi, indoor lounges and climate-controlled bathrooms.) Back to the music: The full lineup includes a genre-hopping mix of 30-plus acts, including Jorja Smith, Banks, Clairo, Tanks and the Bangas, Japanese Breakfast, Lay Zhang, Celeste, Trixie Mattel, Empress Of and Madame Gandhi. Doing a bit of back-of-the-envelope math, we’d expect the per-stage programming to be similar to the schedule of the defunct FYF Fest (but with only three stages, you’ll hopefully be hoofing it around Exposition Park a lot less than that former