Anna Webber – Los Angeles Photographer

Second Annual “Dream, Believe, Achieve” Gala Last Night Featured Performances By Jackson Browne, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Ben Harper, Keb’ Mo’ last night at the Skirball Center.

Click to hear CSN Live Audio (from inside my pocket)

David Crosby performs for the ICEF Foundation at the Skirball Ctr., Los Angeles, CA

What do you think of when you hear the names Jackson Browne, CSN, Keb’ Mo’ and Ben Harper? And then throw them in an intimate room with inner city school kids, foi gras, and fancy guests?

Last night these legendary musicians raised just over $472,000 for one of the largest private entrepreneurial foundations that brings success in the arts to schools in areas with some of the highest dropout rates. Teenagers who would otherwise never make it to the end of their high school term, let alone move onto college, are now mentored and encouraged by this organization, and are accepted into top schools like Dartmouth, Berkeley, even IVY leagues like Yale and Harvard.

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By Anna Webber in Last Night

See this post on LAweekly.com

Still a few years off from Social Security benefits and Denny’s Grand Slam Senior discounts, L.A. punk band X headlined the Wiltern Saturday, pushing the oldsters and youngsters back into a shared protopunk nostalgia.

Despite their age, punk is X (and the Blasters, the Ramones, and the Clash), and still eclipses the overproduced punk scene of today.

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Zero 7 is a UK bred downtempo touring band comprised of founding members Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker. Contributing artists come and go, however last night at L.A.’s Orpheum theater, their 7 piece band included soul blues singer Abimaro and multi-talented folk singer, Olivia Chaney.

Anna Webber

Abimaro performs with Zero 7 at the Orpheum Theater

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The full band played the sold-out multi-leveled Orpheum Theater, performing a two hour set complete with a four-song acid jazz encore sure to make the seated crowd cross eyes, if not lose sensitivity in their backsides, during the louder-than-loud what-should-have-been techno trip-hop dance party earlier in the night.

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View more photos in the Pablove Benefit slideshow.

Anna Webber

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The Pablove Foundation has found a pretty hip way to raise money for kids with cancer by throwing benefit concerts with talent like Silversun Pickups, Neon Indian, Peter, Bjorn and John, and Avi Buffalo. Most of the performers have had to deal with cancer in their own way within their families or close by, a thing which is probably not to difficult to find anymore.

While Saturday’s concert featured bands like Band of Horses, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Tom Morello and Sea Wolf, the night was overshadowed by the tone, and the reason we were all there, overshadowed the music. If you were expecting to see a high energy rock and roll show, the majority of what you got couldn’t have been farther off. This was a place where all acts stripped down – Not to their skimmies, but to the bare bones, unplugged, overly aware, and a little self-conscious.

Anna Webber

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View more photos in the “White Rabbits, Local Natives @ El Rey” slideshow.

Rock and roll sextet White Rabbits are on their Fall tour with eccentric duo Glass Ghost. Last night both Brooklyn groups were joined by LA’s own Local Natives at the El Rey. The result: one of the best performances we’ve seen lately at that venue or elsewhere.

White Rabbits back stage at the El Rey

There were 8 drummers across three bands in total, with keys, vox pedals, and approximately 100 million decibels (give or take a few) across dexterous polyphonic sound waves. From the sound and pressure of the thing, we were in Heaven.

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