Photographer Joaquin Cabello’s favorite concerts of the year included Babymetal, American Football, Marina Diamandis, Anderson .Paak, Laura Jane Grace, Explosions in the Sky, Carly Rae Jepsen, Alexisonfire, the Jonas Brothers, Mineral, Incubus, Gouge Away, The 1975, Blink-182 and Billie Eilish. Taking pictures of artists might be one of my…

Clockwise from top left: Babymetal, Frankie Cosmos, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Brittany Howard, The Chemical Brothers, Holy Ghost!, Sharon Van Etten and Kurt Vile. Staff photos. Every year I make a “resolution” to see fewer shows. And each year by September, I am reminding myself of this resolution. Unlike most…

Tool performs at the Aftershock Festival on Oct. 13, 2019. Courtesy of Aftershock. SACRAMENTO — Northern California’s annual hard rock festival, Aftershock, continued its upward trajectory as one of the premiere national events for heavy music. What began back in 2012 as a one-day and one-stage event has ballooned…

BABYMETAL, “Metal Galaxy.” Babymetal, the kawaii metal pioneers who parlayed viral hits into international fame, already plays a mashup of seemingly incompatible genres, backing upbeat J-pop idol vocals with pure uncut power metal. With its third album, Metal Galaxy, the group expand that mashup premise even further to encompass just…

Babymetal performs at The Warfield in San Francisco on Oct. 4, 2019. Photos: Joaquin Cabello. SAN FRANCISCO — In an era when concert audiences tend to be fairly homogenous, Babymetal drew what may be one of the most diverse crowds the Warfield has ever seen. Not just racially diverse,…

We think that spells “chocolate” in Babymetalese. It’s probably obvious what topic I’m doing this week: World Chocolate Day, celebrated annually on July 7. Supposedly it celebrates the day chocolate was introduced to Europe. It should not be confused with National Chocolate Day in October and the apocryphal International…

Photos: Ian Young By all accounts 2016 was a shitty year. But amid the chaos were much needed distractions in the form of live music. This year I traveled to Iceland, Chicago, Indio, Los Angeles and Seattle to attend 110 shows and eight festivals, watching and photographing more than 250 bands. Here’s…