Live Review: Cut Copy at the Regency Ballroom

Photo Credit: Joel Wessel

There’s nothing quite like a hot, sticky and sweaty dance party to remind you that San Francisco’s still got it, even if you’re a decrepit oldster like me.

That’s exactly the kind of good time that synth-pop maestros Cut Copy delivered on November 13 at the Regency Ballroom, despite some technical hiccups. Touring behind their excellent 2025 album, “Moments,” the Australian veterans dazzled a packed house with their brand of irresistibly danceable electronica.

While the band played plenty of new tracks off “Moments,” they never strayed too far from their beloved album, “In Ghost Colours,” which set a high water mark for new-wave indie music when it was released in 2008. In fact, the band opened with two tracks from that release—“Visions” and “Nobody Lost, Nobody Found,”—before delving into newer material.

For a brief moment, the show seemed imperiled by wayward technical difficulties. Roughly 30 minutes into their set, the band left the stage for several moments due to ongoing issues with their sound connections, but after a feverish plea from an impassioned crowd, they made a triumphant return.

The rest of the set went on without incident, as the quartet combined a dizzying light display with a collection of dancefloor bangers. They closed their set with the “In Ghost

Colours” classic “Hearts on Fire,” before returning with an encore featuring the unstoppable one-two punch of “Need You Now” and “Lights and Music,” the best songs of the band’s enviable catalog.

By then, the entire venue was one sweaty, delirious mess—a mass of bounding bodies totally entranced by the music. So yeah—it ended up being a perfect Cut Copy show.

Live Review: Cautious Clay

Talented multi-instrumentalist R&B musician Cautious Clay recently performed to a sold-out crowd at Bimbo’s 365 Club. 

Broken Dreams Club photographer Aaron Levy-Wolins and local journalist Yael Bright attended the show. 

Photos: Aaron. Words: Yael.

For the longest time, I thought I would associate Cautious Clay’s soulful R&B-meets-intimate pop with driving down the Pacific Coast Highway with salty hair after bombing a calculus exam over Zoom during lockdown. Little did I know I would find myself half a decade later, writing a review of his tour following the release of his deeply introspective album “The Hours: Morning” at a historic San Francisco institution pushing 100.

Cautious Clay’s performance threaded the theme of cyclical time and space throughout the duration of the show. A concert with an established theme elevates the experience. Anything from visual cues on the stage, crowdwork with guided questions or activities, extend the opportunity to ponder and interact with the sticky subtext of a song. It amplifies the sentiment of the album and guides conversation out the door as concert goers exit the venue (and they will proceed to talk about it to any person who will listen, in my case). 

Cautious Clay and his band took to the 94-year-old stage at Bimbo’s 365 in Russian Hill with a clear understanding of this concept. His eight-track album, “The Hours: Morning,” chronicles the process of waking up hour-by-hour. Each track is labeled with a time stamp (e.g. 5 am, 6 am, etc). “I wanted to make something personal, but also make it something we’ve all kind of been through,” the multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter told the audience. 

The stage was certainly designed with that in mind. Wedged in the middle of the platform was a vintage grandfather clock with LED lights embedded under the glass. Throughout the show, a spotlight beam emerged from the clock and gradually circumambulated the stage, as if mimicking the passing of time. His outfit was also bejeweled with subtle nods to time. He walked onto the stage wearing a tank count with a large spiral, (a known symbol indicating cyclicality) accompanied by funky flare jeans featuring a button fly and pockets both at the waist and the bottom of the leg; as if to suggest there’s no way to know where they truly start or end. 

Though the music on the album is highly produced, the instrumentation of the concert remained the traditional bass, guitar, and drums, along with the gaggle of instruments Cautious Clay picked up; a tenor saxophone, flute and tambourine. Eyes closed, brows furrowed and light glimmering the instruments, the band performed incredible, tasteful accompaniment and solo. The drummer and guitarist both frequently brandished several pieces of equipment: a metal slide, a yarn mallet and brushes gave the songs immense texture and the occasional head-bangability. 

“Speaking of time passing, jetlag sucks,” he told the crowd. He explained he and his band haven’t toured in two years due to his desire to protect his artistic vision for his previous album, “Karpeh,” a 15-track collaboration with Bay Area-native singer/songwriter Raphael Saadiq. The songs highlighted in his hour-and-a-half-long set ranged from features of the new album, a song on “The Hours: Night” that was released at midnight EST the night of the performance, as well as his classic sultry ballads. 

“I don’t know if we got any mathematicians in the room tonight,” Cautious Clay retorted, “but there’s 24 hours in a day, so y’all do the math. There’s eight songs on “The Morning” and then there’s eight songs on “The Night”...I don’t know...anyway...you do the math...” 

Well, if I did the math correctly, as I am a journalist and not in fact a mathematician, I cannot wait for the release of the three consecutive albums. This concert was an incredibly well done end to a successful tour. 

- Yael Bright

In Photos: Nation of Language at the Fillmore

Sleek New York synthpop trio Nation of Language brought their 80s-inflected brand of music to the Fillmore on October 13. Touring behind their stirring fourth album, “A Dance Called Memory,” the group—composed of singer Ian Richard Devaney, keyboard player Aidan Noell, and bassist Alex MacKay—wowed the sold out crowd at the legendary venue.

Broken Dreams Club photographer Aaron Levy-Wolins’ collection of photos from the show is below, all credited to him.

In Photos: LaRussell

LaRussell, the Vallejo rapper who’s a mainstay of the Bay Area hip-hop scene, has made a name for himself in large part by hosting intimate shows in his own backyard. Earlier this month, he took that experience to a new level, offering fans a $1,000 ticket for the full VIP treatment, replete with red carpet arrivals, meet-and-great moments, dinner, drinks and a curated personal concert from the hip-hop star, among other features. Hundreds of attendees turned out for two separate performances on October 5.

Broken Dreams Club photographer Aaron Levy-Wolins was there to capture the magic from the experience. A gallery of photos is below, all credited to Levy-Wolins.

Live Review: The Decemberists with the SF Symphony

It’s almost painfully cliché that it took an indie rock band for me to see the San Francisco Symphony for the first time.

And that it was the Decemberists—the cerebral folk-rock troupe from Portland who often cosplay as benighted raconteurs (and who, incidentally, I absolutely love)—that inspired the visit only adds to the cliché-ness of it all. But who cares about how ridiculously obvious the entire scene was—I had an absolute blast.

Sharing the platform with the San Francisco Symphony, led by conductor Edwin Outwater, the Decemberists were at their most baroque and theatrical—a high bar for a band famous for the song “I Was Meant for the Stage,” which they fittingly closed their show with on Friday night.

Colin Meloy, chief songwriter for the band, has always embraced sweeping, emotion-laden narratives, full of doomed romances, tragicomic characters and whimsical, Dickensian scenes. With that ambit in mind, few bands call for the kind of ambitious, majestic backing of a string symphony more than the Decemberists, and on Friday that picture perfect match was more than evident.

For the setlist, the group leaned on their more grand offerings, rising to the occasion of the setting by playing epic songs like “The Crane Wife 1 & 2,” “The Hazards of Love 4 (the Drowned),” and “The Infanta,” which opened the performance. 

Selecting pieces from throughout their lengthy discography, the band trotted out selections both old and new, performing tracks like “The Reapers” and "Rusalka, Rusalka / Wild Rushes" from their two most recent albums, while also playing "California One / Youth and Beauty Brigade" from their 2002 debut album, “Castaways and Cutouts.”

The 15 songs were split over two different sets, with the band playing two songs—"Down by the Water” and  “The Soldiering Life” without the symphony backing. Always unabashedly melodramatic, the band probably had little choice but to close out the night with “I Was Meant for the Stage,” their classic cut from 2003’s “Her Majesty, the Decemberists.” 

It all made perfect sense, proving again that sometimes the most obvious choice is the right one.

In Photos: Destroyer at August Hall

Destroyer, the long running art-rock band fronted by Canadian musician Dan Bejar, stopped by San Francisco last week. Touring behind the group’s 14th album, the appropriately titled, “Dan’s Boogie,” Destroyer entertained the crowds at August Hall on September 24.

 Broken Dreams Club photographer Aaron Levy-Wolins snapped up images of the indie-rock showcase. A gallery of photos is below, all credited to Levy-Wolins.

In Photos: “Weird Al” Yankovic at the Shoreline Amphitheater

“Weird Al” Yankovic, the ageless prankster whose song parodies still sound fresh and funny some 40 years into his career, is back out on the road this summer for his “Bigger and Weirder” tour.

Yankovic stopped by the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View on August 22 for a typically over-the-top performance. Deploying his normal assortment of outrageous costumes—each skewering pop culture touchstones from the past four decades—Yankovic proved once again that there is staying power in cheeky pun and dad hokes.

Broken Dreams Club photographer Aaron Levy-Wolins was on hand to document the zaniness that is the “Weird Al” spectacle. A gallery of photos is below, all credited to Levy-Wolins. 

In Photos: Keshi at the Chase Center

Keshi, the talented multi-instrumentalist who infuses a unique blend of lo-fi sensibilities to his arena rock level sounds, stopped by the Chase Center last week for a headlining performance in front of thousands of fans.

 Fresh off his first Coachella performance and a triumphant two-month jaunt through Asia, the Houston-based artist (born Casey Thai Luong), has been touring nearly nonstop since the release of his 2024 album, “Requiem.”

 Broken Dreams Club photographer Aaron Levy-Wolins captured the exciting energy of the August 12 show. A gallery of photos is below, all credited to Levy-Wolins.

In Photos: Gogol Bordello at the Mountain Winery

Gogol Bordello, the enduring cabaret-punk collective led by frontman Eugene Hutz, stopped by the Mountain Winery in Saratoga on July 30 for a typically raucous and memorable performance.

 Broken Dreams Club photographer Aaron Levy-Wolins was there to document the uproarious show. A gallery of photos is below, all credited to Levy-Wolins.