Photos: Chloe Catajan OAKLAND — Under a stark white spotlight, Real Estate keyboardist Matt Kalman kicked off the band’s Oakland Noise Pop show Saturday with the first few notes of the appropriately titled “Saturday,” from 2017 album, In Mind. The Fox Theater was flooded with yellow light as lead…

Cuco performs at Gray Area in San Francisco during Noise Pop on Feb. 24, 2018. Nick Gumas/STAFF. SAN FRANCISCO — Cuco delivered a genuine, albeit short performance to a sold-out Noise Pop crowd at the Gray Area in San Francisco Saturday. “I guess I was too blind to see you…

Photos: Alessio Neri OAKLAND — Around the time she began writing her own songs for the first time, Melbourne singer-songwriter Carla dal Forno lived in a house that was supposedly haunted. Her music reflects that haunted feeling, and she put that on full display at her Noise Pop show at the…

Photos: Tune-Yards and Thao and the Get Down Stay Down: Jon Bauer. Sudan Archives: Steve Carlson OAKLAND — We live in the future. Sure, people focus on the fact that we don’t have flying cars, and that our hoverboards neither hover nor are boards, but if someone from the…

Bully performs at Great American Music Hall in San Francisco during Noise Pop on Feb. 23, 2018. Gary Chancer/STAFF. SAN FRANCISCO — Playing even faster than on Bully‘s new album, Losing, singer Alicia Bognanno flew through the opener, “Feel The Same.” With frenetic energy, Bognanno bounced on the stage. The…

Photos: Karen Goldman SAN FRANCISCO — Throughout Rostam‘s Noise Pop set at Slim’s Friday, the former Vampire Weekend songwriter made references to to the absence or coming of light. Whether lyrically, such as on the title track of his 2017 solo album, Half-Light—”Baby, all the lights came up”—or on…

Photos: Paige K. Parsons SAN FRANCISCO — With some artists, what you hear on the album is what you hear in concert. It’s either because their songs are written to be played live or because it just works for both; there’s little difference between the two. Others, however, rearrange…

Photos: Alessio Neri BERKELEY – After an hour-long wait, Caleborate took the Cornerstone stage to an audience of fans, friends and family on Thursday. The Sacramento native kicked off his Noise Pop set with “Caught Up,” the opening track of his 2017 album, Real Person. As an artist who wears…

Photos: Jane Hu SAN FRANCISCO — Bay Area favorite Geographer‘s Noise Pop show Thursday at The Independent was a glimpse of an artist in movement: Experimenting and changing, yet confident of his own skills and fully in command of his voice. Mike Deni has one of the best rock…

Photos: Joaquin Cabello SAN FRANCISCO − WHY? explored the new sounds of its latest album, Moh Lhean, at the Fillmore on Thursday, alongside an energetic set from Mister Heavenly and soulful Florist. Immediately commanding the stage as the lights went out, WHY? started its headlining set with one of its oldest songs, “Bad Entropy,”…