Will your New Year's Eve event of choice be lit? We sorted through all the options and can confidently attest that the following concerts are pre-approved, fully certifiable, awesome.
Lil B and Friends at the Regency
It was a massive year for Lil B. The Bay Area hip-hop phenomenon became a household name in 2015, not for winning Grammys, but for placing curses on anyone who stood in the path of the Golden State Warriors on their march to a 2015 NBA title. Most notably, Lil B placed curses on NBA superstars James Harden and Kevin Durant, striking fear into anyone who ever considered stealing his patented cooking dance.
Flaming Lips at Bill Graham Civic Center
The lineup speaks for itself: The Flaming Lips, Ratatat, Tycho (LIVE + DJ set), Gramatik, Geographer, XXYYXX, and Gigamesh represent only a portion of the night’s offerings. We can’t imagine many better bands to count down the New Year to than Flaming Lips, a band that's made a career of celebrating the beauty and complexities of life and the future. Perfect, right?
Thursday: Dada Life at Oracle Arena
Here’s the kind of celebratory component we require to usher in 2016: this past summer, Dada Life asked fans to dress up as bananas to break the Guinness Book world record for rallying the most people dressed up as a fruit in a single location. Bananas, of course, are part and parcel to the band’s identity, so we won't be surprised if we see a plentiful crop of banana-chic outfits. Here’s the entire set from the aforementioned banana-themed concert:
Legendary San Francisco band Primus will perform its 1995 breakthrough album Pork Soda in its entirety for the first time ever. That’s a big freakin’ deal — the kind of big deal Les Claypool and company prefer offering the hometown crowd first. We're officially spoiled.
Flying Lotus performances are just as noteworthy for the visuals as they are the audio, so it seems almost redundant to call one of his sets an "A/V set." But that’s what 1015 is billing this so... ok! Flying Lotus headlines a monster marquee that includes Thundercat and Clams Casino. Get in line.
The Decemberists at the Masonic
The Decemberists are taking a victory lap celebrating the success of What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, an album that earned universal praise. The album also reached as high as No. 7 on the Billboard charts, a remarkable feat for a once-niche, intensely literate rock band. Rolling Stonenoted one theory as to why the band seems to be collecting a larger chunk of audience and critical adulation in 2015: “Maybe because Meloy is now a published author (he's penned a trilogy of popular children's books), his songwriting wit seems to have grown sharper and less showoff-y.”
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