I think the last time I saw a show in the LA Live complex in Downtown Los Angeles was when Steven Wilson was touring Hand.Cannot.Erase. It’s a surreal place. High end chain restaurants, shops, and live concert venues all pieced together in a way to showcase itself as a gathering center for food, art, and media, but really it just comes off as an attempt at a capitalist utopia. The Novo is the current iteration of what used to be Club Nokia, the more affordable venue in the complex, especially when compared to The Crypto Arena or the Staples Center. It was still Club Nokia when I saw Steven Wilson, Mindless Self Indulgence, Reel Big Fish, and a number of other bands back in the early 2010s. Nowadays, it is home primarily to hip-hop and pop artists, as a bartender shared with me, so it was going to be a very different night and a different crowd than usual as Re-TROS, Liars, and Flaccid Mojo took the place over.
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