Campus Conversations

LA: Land of the Concerts

February 15, 2012

One of the many awesome benefits of going to college in the city of Los Angeles is that a large number of inexpensive concerts abound. This past week I had the pleasure of going to three different shows, all of which were phenomenal. If you want hear about each of them in more detail, read more after the jump.The first show I went to was Lana Del Rey’s free performance at Amoeba Music in Hollywood. She had just released her debut album, Born to Die, the previous week, and so the hype surrounding her was so large that the line for the concert wrapped around the block twice. I was truly impressed with how well she sang live, although I did think her stage presence could be stronger. I also wish that I had a better spot to see the stage and that she performed a longer set, but I really can’t complain as it was free after all. Photos are from the Amoeba Music website and were taken the night of the Hollywood show. You can see the rest of them at: http://bit.ly/zxMNOK The next concert I went to was for British indie-pop band Los Campesinos! I think it’s safe to say that it was one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever seen. Both the crowd and the band had so much energy, it was easy to dance along to all of the songs. It was a tiny venue too, so the concert had a much more intimate feeling than the Lana Del Rey show (it was at the Echoplex in Echo Park, near Chinatown). I just had a really good time, and I hope they come back to the US to perform again soon. Pictures courtesy of photographer Matt LaRoche (http://bit.ly/yMdiIf) Finally, this past Monday I went to a concert sponsored by the radio station KCRW featuring two of my favorite indie bands, Lady Danville and Walk the Moon. It was my fourth time seeing Lady Danville perform, and they were charming as always. I especially liked the music they performed from their newly-released EP. Walk the Moon were excellent too. They were so much fun to dance to and I’m definitely going to see them again when they come back to LA in March. A couple of pictures I took at the concert:

Lady Danville

Walk the Moon

I used the Los Angeles Metro system to get to and from all of these concerts. The L.A. public transit system has a bad reputation for being ineffective and problematic, but in my experience these arguments have not held true. Public transportation is a very useful resource for students, especially for those who don’t have a car. I highly recommend getting a TAP card as soon as you can: it only costs one dollar for the card and then five additional dollars to have access to the entire LA Metro system for 24 hours. That’s all for my first Admissions blog entry, I hope you enjoyed it! If you have any questions, feel free to email me at jchilds@oxy.edu. :)