Kendrick Lamar performs during Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2023. Let’s start with the standard history lesson for those of you just joining us: In 2018 I completed a quest to list my top five (or so) songs for every…

Slipknot performs during Aftershock Festival at Discovery Park in Sacramento, Calif. on Oct. 11, 2024. Photos courtesy Aftershock Festival. AFTERSHOCK 2024: • Slayer reunites for explosive Thursday headlining set SACRAMENTO — Aftershock Festival’s second day featured a variety of punk icons and modern rock heavyweights. The crowds felt bigger…

Poppy, “Zig.” Poppy has tested out just about ever corner of rock, from heavy metal to lo-fi, Kawaii metal and grunge. She’s left few stones unturned. Since the artist, born Moriah Rose Pereira, is an adventurer, she turned toward alt-pop on Zig to keep covering new ground. Zig Poppy Sumerian,…

The Smashing Pumpkins perform at Chase Center in San Francisco on Nov. 15, 2022. Steve Carlson/STAFF. SAN FRANCISCO — “Cherub Rock” was the dividing line. It was getting late in the Smashing Pumpkins’ almost two-hour set Tuesday night at Chase Center. Until then, the crowd was pretty evenly spaced, age-wise,…

Poppy performs at UC Theatre in Berkeley on March 8, 2022. Chloe Catajan/STAFF. Alt-rock shapeshifter Poppy returns with Stagger, the follow-up to 2021’s Flux and the singer’s first release on her new label. Stagger EP Poppy Lava/Republic, Oct. 14 8/10 Musically, the four-song set feels like a natural evolution from Flux, which…

Poppy performs at the UC Theatre in Berkeley on March 8, 2022. Chloe Catajan/STAFF. BERKELEY — The always enigmatic Poppy returned to the Bay Area on Wednesday, bringing her Never Find My Place Tour to the UC Theatre. The name was fitting for an artist who seems to thrive on not…

The best albums of 2021 include Doja Cat, Poppy, Desperate Journalist, Demi Lovato, Garbage, James McMurtry, Deafheaven, Parquet Courts and Polo G. Best of 2021 We’re in the top 30 now! You’ve hopefully been waiting on the edge of your seat for a full week to get to this…

“Flux,” by Poppy. Just when you think you’ve got Poppy figured out, think again. On her new album, Flux, the musical shapeshifter stays within the rock universe but taps into a much different musical space than her prior efforts. That’s not to say Poppy (whose name is Moriah Pereira) leaves…

Taylor Swift, courtesy: Beth Garrabrant. Way, way back in 2018, long before the sickness came, I had the crazy idea to list my five (or so) songs of every year from 1967 to the then-present day of 2018. Amazingly, I actually did it. It was a lot of years…

RIFF photographers’ best work in 2020 included these shots of Poppy, Seventeen, The Struts, Colony House, Little Image, KISS, Injury Reserve, Suzi Analogue, Elbow, Tones & I, Thundercat, Thrice, Tove Lo, George Clinton and Ramblin’ Jack Elliot. In this abbreviated year of concerts, we asked our photographers to provide…