Sam Fender performs at Fox Theater in Oakland on April 11, 2025. Steve Carlson/STAFF. OAKLAND, Calif. — Nearly three years since his last appearance in the Bay Area, Sam Fender returned with a level of energy and excitement you’d expect from an artist that had bagged his third BRIT…

Sam Fender, “People Watching.” British songwriter Sam Fender is perhaps best known for pulling from experiences of his coastal hometown of North Shields, along the Black Sea, including his own coming of age stories. Both his debut studio album, Hypersonic Missles, and follow-up Seventeen Going Under, offer raw and…

Rina Sawayama performs at Outside Lands in San Francisco on Aug. 6, 2022. Onome Uyovbievbo and Matt Pang/STAFF. SAN FRANCISCO — Fresh off a stadium tour and with 30 years of experience, Green Day showed how to make Outside Lands bigger and better with a nonstop barrage of early classics,…

The best albums of 2021 include Evanescence, Vince Staples, Julien Baker, Lindsey Buckingham, Black Midi, Lucy Dacus, Leon Bridges, Faye Webster and Shame. Best of 2021 Welcome to the sixth part of the top 50 albums of the year, according to the RIFF staff that reviewed hundreds this year.…

Sam Fender, Seventeen Going Under British singer-songwriter Sam Fender made waves with his debut EP, Dead Boys, back in 2018, a six-track endeavor that he penned entirely solo. Less than a year later, his debut album Hypersonic Missiles put him at the top, debuting at No. 1 on the U.K. charts,…