Post Malone performs at BottleRock Napa Valley at the Napa Valley Expo on May 26, 2023. Sean Liming/STAFF. NAPA — Thousands of attendees packed the Napa Valley Expo on Friday on the first day of the BottleRock Napa Valley music festival. The weather cooperated for once, with highs in…

Bastille seems to have given up on everything; in the present at least. There’s no explanation needed. Instead, Dan Smith and company have started visualizing the future. Fractured lighting, trippy visuals and A.I. are just a few of the images conjured while listening to fourth album Give Me The Future.…

Bastille performs at Greek Theater in Berkeley on Oct. 11, 2019. Photos: Alessio Neri. About six years ago, Dan Smith of Bastille wrote a little song about looking for optimism in a disaster. Now, he and his bandmates are playing songs about simply surviving one. On the road in…

Florence and the Machine performs at Not So Silent Night at SAP Center in San Jose on Dec. 8, 2018. Photos: Alessio Neri. SAN JOSE — All music, all the time—the theme was simple at Saturday’s Not So Silent Night, the annual alt-rock holiday concert presented by San Francisco’s…

Mondo Cozmo, courtesy: Jess Lakin. LOS ANGELES — When Josh Ostrander first released his breakthrough hit, “Plastic Soul,” fans could access a free download only from the lawyer of the artist known as Mondo Cozmo. “Plastic Soul” sampled Erma Franklin’s “Piece Of My Heart,” which went on to be a caterwauling…

It’s not for everyone, but it’s everywhere: electronic music. The genre has evolved faster than any other in the last three years. DJs around the world push its boundaries every day, and if you don’t follow closely, you will be left behind. Audien has made it a priority to also push himself…

Green Day. Photos: Ian Young. OAKLAND — Anyone living in the neighborhood of Oracle Arena could’ve been forgiven for thinking that Saturday night’s installment of Not So Silent Night didn’t begin until 10:30 p.m., because despite an actual start time of 6 p.m., the arena remained something of a library until the…

Bastille, courtesy. U.K. band Bastille dropped the first song off their upcoming sophomore album, Wide World, yesterday “Good Grief” is a musical trek back tot he ’80s for Dan Smith, with skittering beats and handclaps. But the synth lines and grandiose vocal delivery that dozens of other acts have tried to…

Bastille performs at then Warfield in San Francisco on April 10, 2014. Photos courtesy: Jon Ching. Four times since July 2013, England electronic pop quartet Bastille has passed through the Bay Area. And in that time, the band’s local fan base has grown exponentially.  From a room of about 200 at…

Matty Healy of The 1975 and Dan Smith of Bastille. The mohawked frontman of Manchester’s The 1975 drops the phone just as our call is connected. “Oh, for f—‘s sake,” Matty Healy cringes, and I can tell I’m not his first interview of the morning. But just as quickly the…