I have had the honor and privilege of being able to take photos and write about some of the most iconic and legendary artist over the past few years since I have been a contributor here on We Write About Music last night though I got to see one of the most influential artists of the past fifty years, Kim Gordon.

The legendary artist and musician has been on tour the past couple years in support of one of my favorite albums of last year, The Collective. Released on the veteran stalwart independent record labels, Matador Records. Kim has been touring this album for seemingly a couple years at this point (cannot find a full list of tour dates for the life of me) and has been destroying brains the whole time. The Collective is a brilliant mix of what already made Kim an unmatched artist and contemporary musical elements aided by producers Justin Raisen and Sadpony. The mix of Kim’s spoken poetry and brilliant use of noise mixed with industrial trap production translated beautifully into a live concert setting.

The use of bass and sub frequencies raddled everything inside of the historic venue. I am pretty sure I saw a couple people get a little shocked reaction when this happened. Helping bring the noise was Kim’s phenomenal backing band; on guitar is Sarah Register, on drums Madi Vogt, and bassist Camilla Charlesworth. Having the most fun on stage. I love when you can tell how much fun and how excited musicians are to be on stage performing. The setlist consisted of songs from Kim’s somehow only two solo albums. The crowd was a beautiful mix of generations, ethnicities and genders. Kim’s energy on stage is still as powerful as always and controlled the stage while prowling the stage and telling us the ills of the world.

Her parting words to us at the end of their encore being, “I hope you don’t get disappeared”. Hopefully you can see her and her incredible band on one of their remaining US or European dates. If not there will always be The Collective.

Local opener Syko Friend, aka local singer songwriter Sophie Weil, beautifully transcends the idea of a solo singer songwriter with a guitar by adding beautiful drones and echoes through her guitar while her angelic voice kept the song moving. My only gripe is that her opening set was on the shorter end of opening sets and I would have loved to hear more.

Review & Photos by: Ben LaCross

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Kim Gordon Brings a Legendary Set to LA's The Belasco Theater