← Misc · 2021–2026

Phone Lights and Confetti

Five years of concerts and shows, in the order they happened.

When I went through five years of photos for the other posts on this page, one kind of evening kept turning up: a dark room, a bright stage far away, and a few minutes of shaky video. There are more of them than I expected. Some were big nights we planned for months. Others were tickets bought the same week, or a show added to a trip because we happened to be in town.

This post puts them in order, from Maroon 5 at a soccer stadium in October 2021 to a stadium show at SoFi in October 2026. Each section says what the photos show, which is not always the same as what the ticket said. The first few, up to the summer of 2022, I went to by myself or with friends. From then on, "we" means the two of us. The Las Vegas shows already have their own posts, so they only get a short paragraph and a link here.

2021

Maroon 5 · Banc of California Stadium · October 2, 2021

The first concert in this collection. Maroon 5's 2021 tour came to Banc of California Stadium, the soccer stadium next to the Coliseum in Exposition Park. It opened in 2018 for the LAFC soccer club and was renamed BMO Stadium in 2023. The screens inside listed blackbear and Ava Max as special guests, and next to them was a reminder of that autumn: everyone over the age of two had to stay masked, vaccinated or not. I went with friends. We were in our seats by seven, while the sky was still light and an opening act was on the side screens.

Most of the videos are from the main set, from eight o'clock on. The stage was dressed like a garden, with potted palms, a painted backdrop and a white arch, under a huge rig of lights and speakers. The last photos, at 10:52, are of the crowd heading out.

We Can Survive · Hollywood Bowl · October 23, 2021

Three weeks later came the Hollywood Bowl. We Can Survive is an annual charity concert put on by the radio company Audacy, with several big acts on one bill. In 2021 it was at the Hollywood Bowl, which opened in 1922 in a natural hollow in the hills, under the white concentric arches of its shell. I went with friends. We came up the hill through the crowd at six, and by 6:34, when it was nearly dark, the shell was lit red around a big round screen.

The headliner was Coldplay. The videos from the last part of the night show the whole amphitheater glowing with small lights: LED wristbands, which Coldplay's shows hand out and switch on together, so the seats change color with the music. At one point the shell itself was covered in handwritten Korean: 너는 내 별이자 내 우주, "you are my star and my universe." That is a line from "My Universe," the Coldplay and BTS single that had come out a month before.

The set ended with "A Sky Full of Stars." Forty minutes into my last video, fireworks went up from behind the shell, gold first and then pink, over the trees on the hill, while the seats below kept glowing with wristbands.

Here are twenty-five seconds of it: the fireworks going up behind the shell of the Bowl while the song played.

It stayed with me. By the next afternoon I had painted it: the gold shell, the dark green hill, the rows of seats, and the sky above it full of red, pink and gold bursts.

2022

ALTer EGO · Kia Forum · January 15, 2022

Three months later came the first of four nights at the Kia Forum in Inglewood. The Forum opened in 1967 and was the Lakers' home until 1999. From the outside it is a round, colonnaded drum, and that night it was lit pink. Inside, the event was iHeartRadio's ALTer EGO, a one-night alternative-rock show with a long bill. The act the photos show most clearly is Måneskin. At 7:59 pm the screen said MÅNESKIN in white letters, between iHeartRadio logos, while beams of warm light fanned out under the ceiling of the Forum.

Måneskin are a rock band from Rome who had won the Eurovision Song Contest the previous May and were in the middle of a very fast rise. The rest of that night's bill included Coldplay, Imagine Dragons and twenty one pilots, and the phone kept recording until almost eleven. Looking back, it is a little funny how many of these names come back later in this post.

David Copperfield · MGM Grand, Las Vegas · March 13, 2022

The first show in Las Vegas was a magic show. On a desert road trip with friends, we came into the city from Death Valley and, after dinner, went to the MGM Grand to see David Copperfield, who has performed there for many years. There are no photos from inside. The story of that trip is in Death Valley, Vegas & Page.

The Stanford Philharmonia · Bing Concert Hall · May 21, 2022

On a Bay Area road trip with a friend, the afternoon at Stanford included the Stanford Philharmonia at Bing Concert Hall. Bing opened in 2013. It is a "vineyard" hall, with the seats in terraces all the way around the stage and big curved panels hanging overhead to shape the sound. The one photo shows the student orchestra on stage and the terraces behind it. There is more about that day in Road Trips, 2022.

An unnamed show · John Anson Ford Amphitheatre · July 6, 2022

The summer of 2022 was the busiest stretch in this post: five shows in fifteen days. It began outdoors at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills. Neither phone recorded what the show was. My wife's photos, from 8:13 to 9:18, show a stage set against a floodlit hillside, an orchestra's timpani and music stands, and at the end a man in blue speaking at a microphone.

Zedd In The Park · Los Angeles State Historic Park · July 8, 2022

Two days later came another outdoor show, at Los Angeles State Historic Park, a long strip of lawn just north of Chinatown on what used to be a rail yard. Zedd In The Park was a one-day show built around the German producer Zedd. The set times, saved on the phone that afternoon, ran from doors at 5 pm to Zedd himself from 9:25 to 11:00, after five other acts. At 7:54, in the last daylight, the photo is of the event's mascot: a white Z hanging inside a big steel ring.

After dark, the main stage turned into a wall of LED panels. During Zedd's set, the video at 10:02 shows the panels glowing orange and green lasers cutting through the smoke.

WILLOW, Avril Lavigne and Machine Gun Kelly · Kia Forum · July 13, 2022

I have always filed this one under Avril Lavigne, but the photos tell a fuller story. It was a stop on Machine Gun Kelly's Mainstream Sellout tour, with Avril Lavigne and WILLOW opening. WILLOW was on first. At 8:09 her emblem, a W inside a flower-of-life pattern, hung over the stage in blue light, with a toy-like airplane prop up in the rig.

Then, from about 8:40, a red curtain with Avril Lavigne written across it in a gothic script inside a heart, bunches of black balloons on either side, and Avril in front of it in yellow. She was touring her album Love Sux, released that February. The headliner came on later, and it was a different kind of show. At 9:52 the video catches Machine Gun Kelly, pink-haired, in a pastel suit, hanging off the side of a pink-and-black striped helicopter high above the floor. Near the end, the screen showed him on a checkerboard floor with a blonde singer beside him, who looks very much like Avril back for a duet.

SLANDER · Long Beach Arena · July 15, 2022

Two nights later I was at the Long Beach Arena for SLANDER, an EDM duo from Los Angeles. The arena opened in 1962 next to the convention center and is better known from outside, for the giant whale mural that wraps around it. Inside, it was a dark, smoky room with a floor full of people. The best of the videos is from a little before ten: a DJ booth on a long riser and, behind it, a screen running anime-style animation, first a burst of light, then a pair of huge animated eyes.

An orchestra and dancers · Hollywood Bowl · July 20, 2022

Five days after SLANDER we were back at the Hollywood Bowl. The photos don't name the program: an orchestra filled the shell, lit blue, and in front of it were dancers in lime-green tutus and burgundy leotards.

Imagine Dragons · Banc of California Stadium · September 15, 2022

In September it was back to Banc of California Stadium, almost a year after Maroon 5, for Imagine Dragons on the Mercury World Tour. The videos show Dan Reynolds shirtless on a catwalk, a sea of phone lights in the stands, and two storms of confetti, one red and one gold, with big balloons bouncing over the floor. Afterwards the name was lit up in gold above the gates.

blackbear · YouTube Theater · September 26, 2022

Eleven days later we were in Inglewood for the singer and producer blackbear, who had been on the Maroon 5 bill a year earlier, at the YouTube Theater, a 6,000-seat hall that opened in 2021 beside SoFi Stadium. The opening act was the pop-punk band Waterparks, whose name glowed in pink neon on the stage. The screens beside the stage spent the changeover advertising a Smokey Robinson show in December. The best photo, though, is of the building before the show, its pale curved wall and the red YouTube logo almost the only color in it.

We Can Survive again · Hollywood Bowl · October 22, 2022

A year after the first one, we went back to the Bowl for We Can Survive 2022. The lineup was OneRepublic, Halsey, Weezer, Alanis Morissette and Garbage. Inside the shell stood a wide, curved video wall, and at the end of the set it said WE CAN SURVIVE under the Audacy logo, on a starry blue background. The phone recorded OneRepublic's set from 7:28 to 8:06: a big group with keyboards, horns and drums, in front of screens that kept changing, from forests to a close-up of a face in sunglasses.

KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas · Kia Forum · December 10, 2022

Back at the Forum in December, for the Los Angeles rock station KROQ's annual holiday show, Almost Acoustic Christmas. The photos start late, a little before eleven, with a group holding microphones on stage in front of a tartan screen that read KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas. The set that followed, the last of the night, was Imagine Dragons again, three months after the stadium. The videos show the same singer in a white tank top, the same long-haired guitarist, tall portrait screens on either side of the drums, and the lights going orange and red as the set went on. Måneskin, from that January, were on the same bill.

2023

Taylor Swift, The Eras Tour · SoFi Stadium · August 3, 2023

The biggest night in the collection, and probably the hardest ticket. The Eras Tour went on to be the highest-grossing concert tour of all time, and Los Angeles got six nights at SoFi Stadium, which opened in 2020 as home to the Rams and the Chargers. Ours was the first of the six, on a Thursday. The stadium sat under a pink sunset as we walked in at ten to eight.

The show runs more than three hours and goes through her albums one "era" at a time, with new sets and costumes for each. At 8:23 she was out on the far end of the long runway, in a sparkling bodysuit and silver boots, with the stands behind her full of colored lights. At 8:40 the giant screen showed her with a pink guitar, arms stretched wide, next to a doll's house with every room lit in a different color, the set for the Lover section. The videos go on until nearly midnight: columns of white smoke, dancers in orange, and, near the end, big purple clouds carried across the stage.

At 10:22 she was on the screen in a long cream dress, next to a cabin with a moss-covered roof and a smoking chimney under blue trees: the set for folklore.

Adele and KÀ · Las Vegas · September 2–3, 2023

Labor Day weekend was a trip built around a ticket. On the Saturday we saw Adele's residency, Weekends with Adele, at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace: a nearly bare stage, a white piano and two tall beams of green light. On the Sunday we saw KÀ, Cirque du Soleil's show at the MGM Grand, where the stage is a huge deck on a robotic arm that tilts until it is almost vertical. Both are in Rainbows, Adele and Zzyzx.

Ed Sheeran, +–=÷× Tour · SoFi Stadium · September 23, 2023

Seven weeks after Taylor Swift we were back at SoFi. The stage was in the round, in the middle of the stadium: a ring of screens hung over it, showing hand-drawn clouds and flowers, and red masts wrapped in rings of light stood around it. After the show, from the upper deck, the empty floor showed the whole design: the round stage, the masts, and screens shaped like giant guitar picks.

Genshin Concert · Peacock Theater · November 19, 2023

A game concert. Genshin Concert 2023: Melodies of an Endless Journey was a symphony tour of the music from Genshin Impact, a game I play. It came to the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live, the 7,100-seat theater that opened in 2007 as the Nokia Theatre and hosts the Emmys. A full orchestra, harp on the left, played under a big screen showing footage from the game: green valleys and windmills for the first region, Mondstadt, and later lanterns rising over a city at night, storms, battles and the characters. Between pieces the screen went back to the title.

The audience was part of the show too. Some people came in costume as their favorite characters, which you don't see at most orchestra concerts. After the concert, many fans in costume posed together on the plaza outside for a photo.

2024

O · Bellagio, Las Vegas · June 2024

In June 2024 I took my parents to Las Vegas, and the trip was mostly shows. We saw O, Cirque du Soleil's water show at the Bellagio, where the stage is a pool and the floor seems to turn from water to solid ground and back. We also went inside the Sphere for Postcard from Earth, a film made for the venue. My wife and my parents also saw David Copperfield, two years after I had. That trip is section 5 of Las Vegas, Again.

2025

Kenshi Yonezu · YouTube Theater · April 6, 2025

The one show in this collection with nothing to show. Kenshi Yonezu is one of the biggest names in Japanese pop, known outside Japan for "Lemon" and for theme songs to anime such as Chainsaw Man. In April 2025 he played the YouTube Theater, and we were there. Photography and video were not allowed, so there are no photos of the show, and this section has to do without one.

Mad Apple and Bruno Mars · Las Vegas · August 30–31, 2025

Labor Day weekend in Las Vegas again, this time with our dog. On the Saturday we saw Mad Apple, Cirque du Soleil's show at New York-New York, a love letter to New York told with acrobatics, comedy and music. On the Sunday night we saw Bruno Mars at Dolby Live in Park MGM, the theater where he plays his Las Vegas residency. There are no photos from inside that show. The photos from that night are of Bruno Mars ads on the Strip and, back in the room, the merch: two T-shirts and a button pack. Both nights are in section 6 of Las Vegas, Again.

David Tao, Soul Power II · Kia Forum · December 20, 2025

The fourth and last night at the Forum, and the first concert in the collection sung mostly in Mandarin. David Tao (陶喆) is the Taiwanese singer-songwriter who, in the late 1990s, brought R&B into Mandopop, and a lot of people who grew up with Chinese pop music know his songs by heart. His Soul Power II tour came to Inglewood on a Saturday night. The Forum was lit pink again, as it was for Måneskin four years earlier, and this time the letters on the colonnade read DAVID TAO.

Inside, the screens on either side of the stage said SOUL POWER, with "Los Angeles" scrawled between them in blue graffiti letters. The audience had light sticks with the tour name printed on them, and at times the whole floor turned red. At 9:53 pm David Tao was singing at a keyboard, large on the screen beside the stage, with his band on the stage and the light sticks glowing white below.

2026

Lang Lang plays Beethoven · Segerstrom Concert Hall · March 23, 2026

The one evening of classical music in this post, down in Orange County: Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, home of the Pacific Symphony. The hall opened in 2006, and inside it is all curving cream balconies stacked around a wooden stage, with organ pipes behind. The screen over the stage said it simply: March 23 · Lang Lang Plays Beethoven. Lang Lang is probably the most famous classical pianist in the world. He played at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. With Carl St.Clair conducting, the Pacific Symphony opened with Beethoven's Egmont Overture and Dvořák's "New World" Symphony, and Lang Lang came on after the intermission for Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto.

The first photo, at 8:03, shows only the orchestra. By 9:24, after the intermission, a black grand piano had been rolled to the middle of the stage. The last two videos, just after ten, are of the end: the whole hall on its feet, the orchestra standing, and Lang Lang on the screen taking his bows.

Bruno Mars, The Romantic Tour · SoFi Stadium · October 6, 2026

And back to SoFi, three years after the Eras Tour, for Bruno Mars a second time. Thirteen months after the Dolby Live theater in Las Vegas, this was the stadium version: The Romantic Tour. The name was written over the stage in big orange letters, and the stage was a wall of lights. The videos run from before nine to almost eleven. They show Bruno Mars in a headband and a light-blue jacket, the band in matching outfits on the side screens, horns, fireworks, and a mirror ball glittering in the smoke.

Five years, from the floor

Put together, the five years look like this: a lot of the Kia Forum, a lot of Inglewood in general, two radio-station nights at the Bowl, and a weekend in Las Vegas whenever there was a show we really wanted to see. It also shows something I hadn't noticed. Very few of these were big plans. Some of the tickets were bought only a day or two before, because someone we liked happened to be in town.

Going through the videos, I also noticed how little of the music is in them. The phone hears a stadium as a wall of noise. What the clips keep is everything around the music: the wristbands at the Bowl, the confetti, the light sticks at the Forum, the moment a hall stands up. The one night with no video at all, Kenshi Yonezu, is not any harder to remember than the others. Maybe there is a lesson in that, but I will probably still take my phone out next time.

Built from the photos' and videos' timestamps and locations; times are local. Photo locations have been removed from the published images, and a few photos are frames from phone videos. Venue dates and capacities are their published figures; lineups are from the events' published bills. The Las Vegas shows are told in the trip posts linked above.

Some photos in this post are my wife's.