Category: Adventures in L.A.

My First Trip to New, Chinatown Concert Venue Pacific Electric

Voxtrox live at Pacific Electric, March 2026 (Pic: Liz O.)

“You should see the green room, it’s like a boutique hotel,” says Voxtrot singer Ramesh Srivastava on stage at Pacific Electric. It’s Thursday night and the Chinatown concert venue has been open about week, with Voxtrot’s headlining concert being just the second, open-to-the-public event here. The newness of Pacific Electric is very much a part of the buzz in the atmosphere. You can see it in the way the crowd moves about the unfamiliar space, peeking around corners to see where the bathroom is, glancing up from the ground level to catch a view of the balcony. You can see it, too, in the staff, so fresh-faced and friendly. They’ve yet to be grizzled by entitled party people and messy drunks.

I was at Pacific Electric to see Voxtrot, who I had recently interviewed, but, given that the venue is brand new, this post is focused on the space itself. (Here’s the link for the story on Voxtrot.) You may have read about Pacific Electric previously, as it was featured in the L.A. Times and Time Out prior to the opening, but, maybe you want to read about the experience from someone who went to a show there.
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March 31, 2026
Dancing to the No Kings Beat in Downtown Los Angeles

Los Jornaleros del Norte performing at the No Kings protest in downtown Los Angeles on 3/28/26. (Pic: Liz O.)

“Cumbia de la Cobra” leads me deeper into the protest. It’s a banger of the genre with a hypnotic, Middle Eastern-ish melody. I follow the cumbia rhythm through a throng of folks holding signs against ICE and war and Trump towards the sound of horns that are definitely being played live. I hit gridlock at the top of a set of stairs leading down to Broadway. Parked on the street that cuts between two levels of Gloria Molina Grand Park is the mobile People’s Stage, where Los Jornaleros del Norte are performing. The crowd, dancing on stairs and sidewalk, is large, but it’s only small fraction of the turnout for the downtown Los Angeles No Kings rally on this sunny Saturday afternoon in late March.

In the background I hear someone on a megaphone saying something about a big baby. I look up and see that the team of people maneuvering the President Poopypants— IDK if that’s really it’s name, but it should be— balloon is headed towards this makeshift dance floor. We scooch around as Trump’s diaper-clad behind floats above us, but the party continues.
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March 30, 2026
Some Monuments Need to Be Toppled

The toppled and paintbombed Jefferson Davis statue inside Monuments at Geffen Contemporary at MOCA (Pic: Liz O.)

Jefferson Davis looks like he’s been clocked. The oversized, bronze statue of the onetime president of the Confederacy is laid out on the floor of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. He’s splotched and tagged with paint, dried pink streams running down the length of the statue like blood. Walk up close and you’ll see that the top of his head has been pounded flat. An outstretched arm, partially severed from the shoulder, may have once given him the appearance of a savior. Now, it looks like he the one who needs saving. I study the hulking figure for a few moments, snap a couple photos and continue through the museum. Some monuments are better left down for the count.

Monuments, a collaboration between MOCA and The Brick that’s on view at the Geffen Contemporary through May 3, is an exhibition juxtaposing decommissioned monuments with contemporary art to explore U.S. post-Civil War history. The Jefferson Davis statue, which was dedicated in 1907, lived in Richmond, Virginia, where it was part of a whole complex of Confederate monuments. In 2018, a local commission in Richmond recommended its removal, but that didn’t happen until two years later, when the statue was paintbombed and toppled during protests following the murder of George Floyd.
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March 19, 2026
Depeche Mode, Fontaines D.C. and War Child: The Wars Change, But the Protest Songs Remain the Same

Protesting outside City Hall, March 7, 2026 (Pic: Liz O.)

As the Santa Ana winds whipped through Los Angeles, downtown protestors clung to signs that read, “Invest in peace not the Pentagon” and “War crimes don’t hide sex crimes.” A string of activists spoke on the steps of City Hall. They led us in a run of chants all of which could be summarized in one point: end the wars.

Before walking to the Saturday afternoon protest, I listened toHelp (2), the War Child compilation album that came out on Friday, for the second or third time. On it, Depeche Mode covers “Universal Soldier,” written by Buffy Sainte-Marie in the early 1960s. It’s a striking condemnation of war made all the more ominous when performed as a dark, synthpop song. Listen closely and you might swear you hear jets in the background. Even if you’re only playing the song in the background, you can’t miss the resignation in Dave Gahan’s voice when he delivers the closing line, “this is not the way we put the end to war.”
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March 9, 2026
The Day the Crowds Came Back to Chinatown

A crowd gathers outside a gift shop on Broadway in Chinatown (Pic: Liz O.)

One of the first things I learned after moving to Chinatown was to avoid walking down Broadway on the weekends. This was well over a decade ago- before the high rent apartments and perennial line at Howlin’ Ray’s were a thing- and the sidewalk scene on the neighborhood’s main drag was poppin’ throughout the weekends. Back then, trying to get from Point A to Point B was like maneuvering your way through a house party where your goal is to squeeze through a tightly packed crowd of people and stuff without knocking over a vase or getting stabbed by a pointy plant. Then the pandemic happened and, perhaps like most of downtown save for Little Tokyo, the crowds didn’t come back in the same numbers.

On the Saturday after Lunar New Year, though, Chinatown felt like it did before lockdown. I walked along Broadway- after the past six years, I forgot my old rule- and quickly backed up against a wall, near a row of plants, to let large group of teenagers pass. I got caught in wave after wave of gridlock and teetered along the curb trying to bypass the nearly impenetrable crowd in front of Yang Chow and the oversized stroller parked between a store and a rack of tchotchkes. At Scoops, which was my destination, my first two ice cream choices were sold out and the third nearly so. It had been busy all day, I heard, and, even as dinner time approached, people were still hanging around.
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February 24, 2026
Benetton, Bathbombs and the Glendale Galleria

Rows of bathbombs at Lush in the Glendale Galleria (Pic: Liz O.)

Anyone who tells you that malls are dead hasn’t been to the the Glendale Galleria. At 4 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon in early 2026, the scene looks as it might have at the same time of day some thirty years prior. Kids outnumber adults, with the high school crowd ambling past Journeys and Banana Republic in pairs and trios, while the few grown-ups alternate between sifting through sales racks at JC Penney and gossiping over Coffee Bean.

Glendale Galleria opened in 1976 and served as a beacon of LA mall culture through the earliest years of the new millennium. It’s where Panda Express became a fast food staple and where the first Disney Store appeared. For the past two decades, though, the Galleria’s reputation has been overshadowed by the neighboring Americana at Brand, Rick Caruso’s exercise in hyperrealism that looks like a cross between Disneyland’s Main Street and the Las Vegas Strip. The Americana has a trolley *and* a fountain show, plus a bunch of stores that only the Kardashian Klass can afford. It’s LA at its most aspirational. Glendale Galleria has Hot Dog on a Stick and Vans. This is LA at its most real.
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February 16, 2026
How I Learned to Like Santa Monica Pier

Santa Monica Pier, January 2026 (Pic: Liz O.)

We’re walking back to the Metro station from the Santa Monica Pier and a news broadcast catches my ear. “A patent for AirPods that can read your brainwaves,” the voice says. I’m pretty sure that’s an old story, but it still prompts me to look to the side, where I see a cell phone strapped to a large speaker that’s propped up in a wheelchair. Standing next to the wheelchair is the person who I assume wants us all to know that Big Tech is out to read our minds. I think there’s a manifesto printed on the back of the person’s t-shirt, but I’m too far away to read it.
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January 19, 2026
See the Midcentury Art and Design of Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman at Craft Contemporary

Garden, designed by Evelyn Ackerman in 1962, made by Toyo Rug Company in Osaka for ERA Industrias at Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles (Pic: Liz O.)

The first piece that caught my eye inside Craft Contemporary was a rug. Really, it was a wall hanging— I can’t imagine anyone allowing feet to come in contact with it— but it was handhooked with the kind of thick wool yarn that you would imagine carpeting midcentury homes. Garden, designed by Evelyn Ackerman and produced by Toyo Rug Company in Osaka, Japan back in 1962, is art you want to touch. In it, a garden scene rises from a plush, sunny background where two children with cheery faces pick flowers and play with birds. It’s charming in the way that’s similar to Mary Blair’s It’s a Small World style, but it’s also tactile. Pictures don’t do it justice and, while you can’t actually touch museum pieces, you can lean in close to see how the yarn is hooked and sheared to create dimension and add textured details like windblown hair. You should see Garden, and so many other pieces Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman, in person and you can in the exhibition Material Curiosity By Design, which opened at Craft Contemporary in November and runs through May 10.
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January 13, 2026
My First Protest of 2026 (Probably Won’t Be the Last)

A crowd protests against Trump’s strike on Venezuela on a rainy Saturday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles. (Pic: Liz O.)

The most smartly dressed protester at Pershing Square on Saturday afternoon was the person in a Tyrannosaurus Rex suit, an inflatable blue number with a red pattern winding down the back. I can only imagine that this person emerged from the protest much less drenched than the rest of us. Umbrellas, hoodies and hats were only somewhat useful as the rain grew heavier through the afternoon. In the end, it took hours in front of the heater to mostly-dry the wide legs of my black jeans. But, the minor inconvenience was worth it to be part of the crowd chanting “No war on Venezuela.”
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January 5, 2026
Purity Ring Builds a Better World On Stage at The Novo

Purity Ring at The Novo 11/12/25 (Pic: Liz O.)

A few songs into their set on Wednesday night, Megan James of Purity Ring thanked the crowd for masking up. She talked about a world where we are “caretakers of the land we live on,” where there are no prisons or genocide. “It starts at home with material care for others,” she told the crowd, “like wearing a mask. No one is going to save us. We care for each other. We keep each other safe. Free Palestine.”

The night began with security passing out masks near the entrance to The Novo It ended with guards near the photo pit handing out water bottles to people in the crowd, something I have never seen happen at a show before this one. All of this connects to Purity Ring’s new, self-titled concept album, which was released in September. Inspired by RPGs like Nier Automata and Final Fantasy X, the album is itself a soundtrack for an imagined game, wherein the characters’ quest is to built a better world.
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November 13, 2025