“Is North Hollywood here?” host John C. Reilly asked the crowd at G*ve a F*ck, a fundraiser concert held Wednesday night at the Hollywood Palladium, to scattered cheers. “Where’s Studio City at?” drew more applause. “Rancho Cucamonga?”
It felt like Reilly could have name checked each of Los Angeles’ several dozen neighborhoods, along with the county’s other towns and kept the crowd’s attention. If last week’s FIreAid L.A. was the gala spectacular, with its five-figure floor seats and a global audience spread across commercial radio and streaming outlets, Wednesday night’s G*ve a F*ck L.A. felt like it was a night out by L.A. – primarily its indie rock scene – for L.A.
It was an intimate evening all around, starting with the Palladium stage, clad in candelabras (flameless candles alit) and lilies in front of a red velvet curtain backdrop. Artists generally played stripped down arrangements, either solo (in the case of St. Vincent or Perfume Genius) or with lone accompaniment (Kevin Morby playing with Waxahatchee, for instance). Even though the Palladium can hold more than 3,500 people, the room felt cozy.
That intimacy seemed to give artists a little more comfort in chatting with the audience, starting with Reilly, the night’s emcee. The actor lost his home in the Altadena fire, but balanced pathos with humor nimbly; at one point, he found himself transitioning between a moment of silence for those who died during the fires to introducing Christopher Owens as a yo-yo collector and “trick master.” At another, he had to compose himself after considering the empathy shown for Los Angeles by some, and the lack of empathy shown by others (especially by some in power). It was perfectly imperfect, awkward and charming in a way that you can be when everyone in the room is rooting for you.
Two-song sets were the norm throughout the night, as were covers: The Linda Lindas’ energetic reworking of Best Coast’s “The Only Place,” an ode to being young and free in Southern California, was thematically perfect, while Perfume Genius chose to double up on other people’s songs, including a touching solo piano rendition of Radiohead’s “4 Minute Warning.” Hayley Williams also chose covers for both of her selections: “Daylight” by alt-rock band Failure (she was backed on the night by Failure guitarist Ken Andrews) and “All is Full of Love” by Bjork; her fans at the Palladium did get a taste of Paramore, however, thanks to a drag performance by “RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner Symone set to “That’s What You Get” and “Crushcrushcrush.”
What set G*ve a F*ck apart, in the end, was just how “of the city” it felt. Muna’s introduction referred to a drunken fight at local institution House of Pies, while FINNEAS came to stage after a story about his personal Bermuda Triangle of cell phone reception in Glendale. Starcrawler and St. Vincent, the former formed here and the latter a recent resident, each performed takes on the city (“I Love L.A.” and “Los Ageless,” respectively). And Phantom Planet, which had turned their previously planned show days prior into a fundraiser of its own, ended the evening with a full-lineup shout-along to “California,” a moment of catharsis weeks in the making.
But if the evening had an emotional centerpiece, it might have been the one-song set of Jenny Lewis. The mainstay of Los Angeles’ independent music scene put together her own mini-supergroup for the evening, with Pierre De Reeder of the newly-reunited Rilo Kiley on guitar, Katie Gavin of Muna on violin, and Williams on backing vocals, for a stripped down version of “Let Me Back In,” a Rilo Kiley ode to the city that birthed it. The song recounts Lewis’ history with the city: defending it, dissing it, leaving, coming back. But, as she sings, “no matter how cruel I’ve been, L.A., you always let me back in.” On nights like these, L.A. – and North Hollywood, and Studio City, and even Rancho Cucamonga – feels like a spirit more than a place. And as the calendar filled with fundraising events, the warehouses of donated goods, the high bids on charity auctions, and the filled volunteer schedules indicate, the city is willing to move mountains to let everyone back in.
See all the setlists from the evening here.
