The arrival of Intuit Dome, Inglewood’s newest arena, couldn’t have come at a better time. On the heels of summer with so much madness in the air, if there was ever a need for music royalty to make an appearance with the hits that help us stay sane and lose control (in a good way), then this is it. With the new venue kicking off its lineup in mid-August, we are already planning our trips to check out the best the Dome has to offer through the fall. Here are eight upcoming shows we’re most excited for.
Bruno Mars, Aug. 15 & 16
He sang about wearing “Inglewood’s finest shoes” in his quintuple-platinum 2016 smash “24K Magic,” and now Mars will touch down in the same city for his first gigs in the L.A. area in six years. Mars has hardly been undercover since then: In 2022 he won Grammy Awards for record and song of the year with “Leave the Door Open” by Silk Sonic, his throwback-R&B duo with Anderson .Paak, and he’s been performing regularly in Las Vegas both on his own and with Silk Sonic; last year he lent a little of his signature pop-soul swag to Lucky Daye for the strutting “That’s You,” which he co-wrote and co-produced. (Mikael Wood)
Olivia Rodrigo, Aug. 20-21
It’s not quite Eras tour numbers yet, but Olivia Rodrigo is definitely getting there. Rodrigo, not yet tapped out after four nights at the Kia Forum down the street, just tacked on another two at Intuit Dome for good measure. Her “Guts” tour was already a coveted concert event of the season, but it’s now looking more like one of those stands that becomes lore for her fan base. We can’t wait to howl the full dirty version of “Vampire,” but definitely get there early for ’90s alt-rockers The Breeders, who probably still can’t believe their luck to be playing to crowds like this every night. (August Brown)
Peso Pluma, Aug. 24
The música Mexicana singer was probably the highlight of Coachella this year, on a stage packed with bandmates and dancers that doubled as a history lesson of Mexican corridos. “Éxodo” is his fourth album and first since his 2023 breakthrough, “Génesis,” then the highest-charting regional Mexican album in U.S. pop history, which rewrote the whole narrative around Latin music in the States. The back half of “Éxodo” tries hard to carve some new lanes for hip-hop — Cardi B, Rich the Kid and Quavo guest — in his sound, but he’s at his best when in full command of his tradition, dragging it into a bracing and dangerous new future. (AB)
Future/Metro Boomin, Aug. 31
Did Future and Metro Boomin know the caliber of lyrical violence about to ensue when they tracked “Like That”? How Kendrick Lamar’s guest verse would kick off a scorched-earth war that would forever stain Drake’s career? The Atlanta rapper Future and superproducer Metro, each known for dark, bleary styles that defined the 2010s, have had a fruitful collaboration going back more than a decade. But March’s “We Don’t Trust You” marked a new high point in their catalogs that deserved a victory-lap tour. If Kendrick shows up for a cameo, all your dogs gettin’ buried. (AB)
Slipknot, Sept. 13-Sept. 14
While our pick for the best venue to see Slipknot this year would have been front row at Pappy & Harriet’s, Intuit Dome will be a fine substitute for the Iowa shock-metal veterans. With new drummer Eloy Casagrande (formerly of Brazilian greats Sepultura) minding the formidable drum throne, the group’s bludgeoning sound hasn’t remotely dulled even after decades as a metal sub-industry unto themselves. On “The Chapeltown Rag,” from 2022’s “The End, So Far,” Corey Taylor still whips from bold melody to fiendish growls like few vocalists are capable of. (AB)
Usher, Sept. 21, 22, 24 & 25
The seasoned R&B star advertised his latest tour on a platform as big as they come when he headlined February’s Super Bowl halftime show in Las Vegas, where he held down a successful 100-date residency at Park MGM from 2022 to 2023. Not unlike Taylor Swift with her blockbuster Eras tour, Usher is framing the new road show, called Past Present Future, as a razzle-dazzle overview of his three-decade career, from his hits as a flirty teenage charmer to the eclectic (if still romantically minded) LP he dropped just a couple of nights before the Super Bowl. (MW)
Weezer, Oct. 11
Thirty years after the release of its hit 1994 debut, L.A.’s Weezer is on the road performing the self-titled LP that came to be known as the Blue Album: 10 hooky, fuzzy, just-about-perfect guitar-pop jams — including such indelible KROQ staples as “Buddy Holly” and “Say It Ain’t So” — that ended up building a bridge between the tortured grunge of the decade’s beginning and the quirky alt-rock of the decade’s end. (No “Undone — The Sweater Song,” no “Flagpole Sitta” by Harvey Danger.) For openers, the band is bringing along two veteran acts that helped set the table for Weezer: the Flaming Lips and Dinosaur Jr. (MW)
Billy Joel, Oct. 12
The Piano Man just wrapped his decade-long residency at New York’s Madison Square Garden, where he played to nearly 2 million people (and rang up reported ticket sales of more than $260 million) over 104 concerts since 2014. Yet Joel at age 75 isn’t hanging it up quite yet: This show, which will come about a year and a half after he played SoFi Stadium with Stevie Nicks, is one of half a dozen stadium or arena gigs he’s got booked through the end of 2024. He even released a new pop single, “Turn the Lights Back on,” in February — something he seemed disinclined to do as recently as early 2023, when he told The Times that songwriting had become an “excruciating” enterprise. (MW)
