The summer festival season is great for catching legacy acts and buzzy bands enjoying their moment of critical acclaim, but festivals are just a small part of the yearly musical cycle. Much of the lifeblood of music takes place outside of festival—in clubs, bars, DIY venues and occasionally even the SAP Center. This fall, a number of this generation’s most exciting musicians come through the South Bay, most of whom are touring behind new albums. From Spanish punk to Barbie Dreams, this is the best live music happening in the South Bay this fall.

Wild Animals
Sept 5
Subrosa, Santa Cruz
This May, Spanish indie punks Wild Animals released their second album on SoCal label Lauren Records. Full of melodic bangers, The Hoax draws from a wellspring of tried-and-true ’90s influences like Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr. and Dillinger Four, as well as more current indie rock acts like Swearin’ and Katie Ellen. On their first-ever American tour, the Madrid band stops by Subrosa in Santa Cruz. On a good day the small anarchist bookstore and community space fits about 50 people, making it the perfect place to catch the kinetic punk band while they’re on top of their game.

Shakira
Sept 6
SAP Center, San Jose
In an age when Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders have all held positions of authority, it’s comforting to know that at least hips don’t lie. Shakira, she of throaty vocals and diminutive height, brings this eternal truth to the SAP Center this September in all its slinky glory. El Dorado, her 2017 album, may have been under-promoted in the mainstream, but it’s chock-full of classically Shakiran material like the dubby reggaeton of “Clandestino,” and the club-ready “Chatanje,” songs sure to get the crowd going in San Jose.

Tinashe
Sept 8
Pure Nightclub, Sunnyvale
With a voice somewhere between Aaliyah and Rihanna, Tinashe is a pop superstar in the making. She may not be a household name in America yet, but in plenty of places around the globe the former child star is already a major success, placing high on the charts with her trap-pop hit “No Drama” (featuring Offset) and club-ready sizzler “Me So Bad,” both of which are on this May’s Joyride. And with dance moves as good as her voice, club-goers at Pure are in for a great performance by an artist about to break.

Nothing & Culture Abuse
Sept 18
The Ritz
If heavy shoegaze is a thing (and based on the amount of bands making it, it is), Nothing is near the center of the movement. This month’s Dance on the Blacktop is the third album by the bad-dreamy Philadelphia post-hardcore band, one that continues their tradition of mixing swirling reverb with lyrics about the disgusting banality of bodily existence. Meanwhile, the Bay Area’s own Culture Abuse make impassioned pop played with the vitality of the punk bands they love, and are one of the best bands to emerge from the gentrified mess of modern San Francisco.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill Tour
Sept 20
Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View
It’s hard to imagine the last 20 years of music without the era-defining The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Winning five Grammy awards the year it was released, the first solo album by the ex-Fugees singer laid the groundwork for pan-African American albums like Kamasi Washington’s The Epic and Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, as well as the neo-soul movement of Amy Winehouse and the Dap-Kings. It’s a modern classic, and the reason why Ms. Hill remains one of the most respected and feared musicians on Earth.

Kneebody
Sept 21
Art Boutiki, San Jose
This one is not to miss. Kneebody is one of the best young jazz groups today. Last year’s Antihero is a record packed with incredible performances, weird compositional choices and, most importantly, great songs. All the songs are good. The groove on “Uprising” could kill a man. Kneebody is the kind of group that pays homage to the greats not by copying them, but by stretching the genre’s boundaries like they did. Getting this kind of talent in a room like Art Boutiki makes for one of the best shows of the fall.

Parquet Courts
Sept 28
The Ritz, San Jose
This year Parquet Courts released a song about collective action that’s named after a technique from the 1974 World Cup and ends with the lyric: “Fuck Tom Brady.” It’s good. The album opener for this year’s Wide Awaaaaake!, “Total Football” is pure nervous energy. Lyrically, it plays out like Marxist poetry, drawing a line that connect Hermann Hesse, the Beatles and the Black Panthers in a struggle against apathy. This is the first time New York band will play San Jose, a welcome sign for those anxious to see more relevant up-and-coming touring acts come through the city.

Childish Gambino
Oct 2
SAP Center, San Jose
Childish Gambino’s 2016 album Awaken, My Love! may have spawned the massive hit “Redbone,” but it proved to only be the beginning of a shift for the musician, one that culminated in his massive 2018 banger “This is America.” Like The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Gambino’s (a.k.a. Donald Glover’s) recent works have made a conscious effort to fuse all elements of the African-American experience, creating something that is both pop and a cultural document. Not bad for a project that started with a Wu-Tang name generator.

Conor Oberst
Oct 5
Cocoanut Grove Ballroom, Santa Cruz
It wasn’t so long ago that magazines were calling Conor Oberst the next Bob Dylan. Like Dylan, his voice is instantly recognizable, and like Dylan, he takes elements of folk music and weaves emotional journeys into their familiar chord progressions. After more than two decades in music, he’s been a part of indie rock, emo, punk, Americana and just about every diagonal that crosses and bisects them. With him in Santa Cruz is his backing band, the Mystic Valley Band, as well Phoebe Bridgers, a musician whose work is exciting people the way a young Conor Oberst once did.

Mac Miller & Thundercat
Oct 30
City National Civic, San Jose
Somehow, despite having his debut album hit No. 1 on the Billboard top 200s with no major distribution behind it, Mac Miller has remained something of an underdog. This year’s Swimmer is full of poolside pop that came just in time for the end of summer. But more importantly, Thundercat is opening the show. Thundercat, the low-end wizard who dresses like Ash Ketchum on acid, is one of the most unique voices in instrumental music today, playing bass in way that hardly sounds like an instrument at all. Don’t sleep on the chance to see either in a rare San Jose performance.  

Nicki Minaj & Future
Nov 16
SAP Center
It’s only been a couple of weeks since Nicki Minaj released Queen, but it’s already spawned thinkpieces about her witchy laugh, freestyles about fucking Stephen Colbert, and one weird piece from Forbes of all places claiming that the album is “hypocritical” (I guess fawning over billionaires’ yachts isn’t paying the bills). With her at the SAP Center is Future, the man whose “Mask Off” made flute the hottest instrument in hip-hop. Like Minaj, Future is saying he’ll have a new album out in time for the tour. Fingers crossed that the clarinet gets a prominent feature this time.

As awesome as the San Jose Jazz Summer Fest is sure to be, many locals will surely be heading to San Francisco this weekend for the annual Outside Lands event. This year certainly boasts a litany of great acts, including The Weeknd, Florence + The Machine, Janet Jackson, Future, Portugal. The Man and many, many more. Fans of local music should be sure to catch Hot Flash Heat Wave and SOB x RBE. There’s also the D.A.V.E. stage, which will feature “Discussions About Virtually Anything” with the likes of Gavin Newsom, Bill Nye and Mickey Hart. Runs through Sunday.

Outside Lands
Fri-Sun, $149+
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

In the 32nd year of his life, Future stands at the vanguard of hip-hop. After a couple false starts and niche-satisfying mixtapes, the gritty Atlantan just charted three No. 1 albums. They lack front-to-back polish, but in the Internet era, prolificacy, innovation and viral slappers—all strengths of his—count most. The aptly named artist’s sonic experiments epitomize the melty vocals and robo booms nascent in the world’s biggest, broadest genre.

On Saturday, he capped his Purple Reign tour at the sold-out, sweetly hazy SJSU Event Center. The number of people over 35 could be counted on two hands and a foot. With his bleach-tipped dreads pulled back, clad in an all-white ensemble and drenched by overlapping blue and red spotlights, Future initially stood onstage alone–sans band, backing DJ or posing hype men—literally and figuratively peerless.

Backed by rollicking oceans of lean and 15-foot-tall speakers that rumbled like Godzilla’s footsteps, Future whipped the crowd into a unceasing frenzy, kicked off by his “Thought It Was A Drought” bar about sexual infidelity while wearing Gucci flip flops. He received hype assists from DJ Esco, popularizer of the dab—Cam Newton’s end zone celebration of choice, which looks like a person sneezing into their elbow, but is way cooler for whatever reason.

Future sneered and stomped during “Stick Talk.” He tiptoed and strutted like Jagger during “I Serve the Bass.” He swirled through the stuttering drops on “Diamonds Dancing,” then struck Heisman-like poses while victory lapping on his biggest banger “Jumpman.” Finally, his lanky frame pumped triumphantly as purple confetti flipped and flapped from the rafters during his timely single, “March Madness.”

Future’s music washes over you in waves. He benefits immensely from his stellar, quintessentially modern production, provided most notably by Metro Boomin—you know, the guy you better hope trusts you. Their sound smacks of Southern rap, but is injected with the steroidal enhancements of trap EDM and filtered through multi-layered, wobbly psychedelia. The colossal kicks, ratatat smacks and hypnotizing plink-plonks form an angular base that cradles Future’s gooey rap.

A pair of Future fans pass that fire. Photo by Greg Ramar.

Plus, Future helped to transform autotune from a cheap pop trick into an immersive effect that roughens his drawl and wraps it in a chilly melancholy even when he’s at his most braggadocious. The effect blurs his lyrics to near unintelligibility, which isn’t a bad thing.

Like Young Thug and Fetty Wap, Future has chosen melody over complete coherence. He mumbles, swells and scampers through each track—punctuating his stanzas with signature, feral ad-libs that careen in the empty spaces between lines. He works his voice like a jazz soloist does a trumpet. His blurred verses stand alone melodically and unearth sentiments that lie in ineffable realms.

But despite his stylish obscuring, Future’s lasting appeal lies in his lyrics. He paints sneaky depth into his vivid pictures of debaucherous luxury. Throughout his discography, he wrangles with the fleeting pleasures of his (lightly fictionalized) drug usage that brought Xanax, Molly and Percocet into the mainstream rap vocabulary. He’ll detail nights where he’s draped in shiny things and entertaining bi-curious baddies with elaborate sex—then, he slips in a line about the pointlessness of fame’s trappings or the rampant police brutality he and his homies know all too well.

Hip-hop fails if it isn’t personal. And Future ranks among the most singular in the game. The long-anonymous artist flooded the market, yet his at-capacity San Jose stop testifies to a continuing thirst. The sonic explorations at the frontier of his genre earned him his lauded place. But he remains fascinating for his subtle musings on the problems that even an unprecedented level of success can’t fix.

Future at SJSU Event Center.

For the entire gallery of Future photos, click here.

The party was at Stanford over the weekend as hundreds of people turned out for Blackfest, the annual party headlined this year by Atlanta rapper future also featuring several dance crews.

Photos by Metro photographer Alex Stover.

Interesting things are happening at “the farm.” Following the announcement last week that indie rock darlings MGMT will perform at Stanford, it was announced today that rapper Future will make an on-campus appearance for Blackfest.

The annual spring concert returns May 4 at Levin Field with the Atlanta-based rapper, along with other performers and campus dance groups. Admission to the event is free.

The show marks another fresh break from Stanford’s normal lineup of well-coiffed classical and jazz shows. Future’s biggest hits include a syrupy and flashy slow jam (“Turn on the Lights”), a gangsta rap homage to coke film Scarface (“Tony Montana”) and tracks with some of the biggest names in rap, including 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne and T.I.

Blackfest has a history of bucking Stanford’s normally conservative music performance bookings, bringing top-tier acts to the university since its 2003 debut. Previous headliners Kendrick Lamar, Big Sean, Wale and E-40.

Campus dance groups performing this year include Alliance, HD Crew, Jam Pac’d and Catch a Fyah. A new addition to the show this year will be a cypher showcasing local rappers, according to organizers.

Black Fest starts at 2pm on May 4 at Levin Field on Mayfield Avenue in Palo Alto.