The joy of covering pop music in Southern California is that there is just so much of it. That’s also the worst thing about it, too. Each year we head out to stadiums and arenas and theaters and clubs to check out hot new acts, legends with long legacies, and festivals packed with every flavor of music imaginable.
Yet there’s always one more you wish you could have caught. And sifting through the highlights of the year can be painful. Does Pearl Jam at the Kia Forum make the Top 10? Lana Del Rey’s headlining turn at Coachella? Vampire Weekend at the Hollywood Bowl? All were great.
Alas, none made the cut. Music reporters Peter Larsen, Holly Alvarado and Charlie Vargas were out there, all night and sometimes all day in 2024, and here present their top concerts and festival sets in no particular order. Chappell Roan and Raye at Coachella, Empire Polo Field, Indio : Look at us, cheating with a two-fer right off the bat.
But Chappell Roan with her drag queen aesthetic and catchy synth-pop songs and the British modern soul singer Raye were two of the biggest breakouts of the festival this year. Roan, we wrote at the time, felt “like she’s about to get much bigger fast,” and after Coachella, she went supernova on the festival scene. Raye, whose art is classy cool to Roan’s trashy fun, deserves to do the same.
See the Coachella reviews of the days they performed here and here . Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Kia Forum, Inglewood : Eight years after his last.