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Backstage at the benefit that took place Wednesday night under the name A Concert for Altadena, star and co-organizer Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes was talking about how he came close to thinking it was not necessarily vital to hold the concert exactly on the first anniversary of the devastating fires of Jan. 7, 2025.
“You know, I was saying today I’m so glad we did,” said Goldsmith, as the sold-out show was beginning at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. “Because initially I thought, ‘Oh, should we just do it on the Friday that week, to help people get here?’ But I mean, I’ve found myself, even, emotionally processing in ways that feel like this show’s gonna be all the more potent. If we had we done it on Friday, I feel like it just wouldn’t be necessarily living in us the way it is right at this moment.”
At one point in the nearly four-hour show, host John C. Reilly stopped to acknowledge that there were members of the community who might have wanted to be among the 3,000-strong audience members, but who skipped out on buying tickets (or accepting the gratis ones offered to some fire victims) because it would have been too traumatic to see footage of the fire or its aftermath, or hear the recounting of the devastation and 19 deaths. It was the rare concert where a moment was given to respect for those who opted out of coming.
For Goldsmith, whose family lost part or all of three Altadena homes in the fire, all these emotions were encouraged and expected. “I think people want to have a good time, but I do think catharsis plays a massive role,” he said, “I think people are expecting to have to hold each other, but maybe also encourage a little bit of these (tougher) emotions. This is gonna be a space for that, whether it’s cheering or singing or crying. And I think a lot of these songs speak to kind of giving that opportunity.”
Anyone who came just for known bangers, based on the featured billing, did not leave disappointed. Brandon Flowers of the Killers was saved for a climactic spot in the proceedings for a reason, capping off a rousing “When We Were Young” with an even more rabble-rousing cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “The Promised Land.” Stephen Stills stood energized the many boomers on hand and their progeny with versions of “For What It’s Worth” and “Love the One You’re With” that featured fellow guitar gunslinger Brad Paisley. Everclear brought the vintage KROQ energy with a full mini-set of alt-rock perennials. And those moments were the tip of the iceberg for a night that found standing ovations given to songs and artists that were not as recognizable to everyone in the house, like the leaps to stand up and applaud that followed vocally stunning performances by Lucius and Judith Hill.
The evening raised more than $450,000, its producers announced Thursday., earmarked for the Altadena Builds Back Foundation (ABBF), a charity that was formed last April under the wing of the 70-year-old Pasadena Community Foundation. Speaking early in the program, Jennifer DeVoll, executive director of the ABBF, talked about the grants the org has already given out this past year, much of which has gone toward building homes, through organizations like Habitat for Humanity. Intensely local groups like the Black Freedom Fund and Altadena Girls will also benefit from the proceeds.
There has been controversy over the dispersal of fundraising since the fire, which was on Goldsmith’s mind as he and his fellow organizers decided who would benefit from Wednesday’s show. “That kind of suspicion or concern was what really went into us making these decisions,” he said backstage. “And so when we came across Altadena Builds Back Foundation, that was working with Habitat for Humanity, and then visiting some of the properties and seeing firsthand what they were doing for these families, it made us feel like this is the right, this is the right foundation to bring. That’s what this whole thing’s for, so we weren’t gonna just not think it through in any detail.”
Goldsmith, who lost a home studio and all his equipment in the fire, was standing in a group with several other people who suffered property losses of their own, including his brother, Dawes drummer Griffin Goldsmith. (The brothers’ parents also lost their home.) Co-organizer Eric Krasno, a guitar great who later that night would deliver a pitch-perfect “Voodoo Chile,” was another in this circle, along with fellow guest performer Aloe Blacc, who would soon thrill the crowd with a signature song, “Wake Me Up.”
“My kids lost their school,” said Blacc. “The students from Pasadena Waldorf Choir are singing tonight.” In fact, that’s what Taylor Goldsmith, Krasno and Blacc had in common: children at that school. “Many of my friends and many of the teachers at the school lost homes. And I lost a couple of properties, though it wasn’t my main home. So I have to stand and support as many people as possible spreading the word. Since the fires, I’ve met up with a lot of organizations and foundations to donate, and then linked them with local organizations that they could get the money to. Because money was going to, in my opinion, some organizations that were not distributing properly. If I could be diplomatic.”
As Blacc hinted at, there is more than a little anger to go around about what happened before, during and since the fires, along with the sorrow and thousand other emotions. This primarily celebratory night wasn’t about that… or mostly wasn’t about it; a little feistiness bubbled up from time to time, especially when host Reilly went off-script for some impromptu remarks about the power company and President Trump that got much of the crowd whooping in appreciation.
Noting that he was being prompted to “riff” between musical setups, Reilly — who was also displaced by the Altadena fire — took on Southern California Edison. “I want to point out that many people are calling these fires, wildfires. And they were wild…. Those Santa Anas made those fires wild. But those fires did not start naturally. Those fires started because of Southern California Edison. … By the way, I saw what you offered, Southern California Edison, to our survivors — you could go fuck yourselves.”
It wasn’t just Trump and the power company drawing the ire of the otherwise good-humored actor. “2025, you can kiss my ass,” he blurted, extending his rear end.
The idea that a historically mixed-race and mixed-class neighborhood might be rebuilt as a very different kind of community came up in the speech of activist Heavenly Hughes, one of the subjects of the currently Oscar-shortlisted short film “All the Walls Came Down.” A chant was led: “Altadena is not for sale.”
But for much of the night, the mood was lighter, if not giddy at times. That’s inevitable for any night that has Ozomatli performing in the first half-hour and dispersing through the aisles — right on the heels of the aforementioned kids’ choir performance. After the requisite turnout of local speakers, the stage was turned over to Everclear, whose Art Alexakis made sure the twin fire above the other end of the Los Angeles basin was not forgotten in the Altadena/Pasadena focus.
“This goes out to all our brothers and sisters in Pacific Palisades,” said Alexakis., introducing the song “Santa Monica.” “I grew up in Santa Monica on the poor side of town in a place called Ocean Park, which a lot of people call Dogtown. Pacific Palisades is what you aspire to, right? And just seeing the damage there just breaks my heart. But I gotta tell you… I aspired Altadena, and I didn’t even know it.”
Talking backstage before the show, Goldsmith said he couldn’t forecast any highlights, but once he was out on stage, he let his bias show. “I’m not above saying that this next guest is my favorite guest of the whole batch,” he told the crowd. “This is the person that actually helped guide my family through the whole experience… this person I love more than anything in the world. This is Mandy Moore.” For anyone who was listening to Top 40 instead of KROQ in 1999, Goldsmith’s wife was also able to take the crowd back, with a slightly more rocking version of her breakout hit “Candy.”
Dawes’ own contributions to the night, apart from serving as backing band for most of the performers in the second half, included reprising “I Love L.A.,” which they played at the 2025 Grammys with Paisley, as they did here — somehow resisting what had to have been an impulse to insert Lake Ave. somewhere into Randy Newman’s sacred text. The Goldsmith brothers touched on the theme of hope for something lasting amid impermanence in a more mirth-skirting way with their anthem “All Your Favorite Bands.” (Again, if you wanted to sing it as “may all your favorite towns stay together,” that was up to you.) They erred, if anything, on the side of not overloading the show with very much actual Dawes material, but their most anthemic song, “When My Time Comes,” was a given for the penultimate spot, followed only by a full-cast sing-along of “With a Little Help From My Friends” to close out the night.
Lucius’ Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig were MVPs, as they often are at shows like this, generously supporting other artists with world-class background vocals as well as performing just a taste of their own material. Among their key support moments was aiding Goldsmith in a perfect reading of Pink Floyd’s “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” — something that was done on a joint Dawes/Lucius tour a few years ago, and of course was a staple of the shows back when the women were touring with Roger Waters. For their own part, they bought down the house — or brought it up — with “Dusty Trails,” the Lucius number that is most guaranteed to instantly make fans with a subdued opening eventually rising to sudden high harmonies no one sees coming until they are infiltrating your nervous system.
Pasadena native Judith Hill’s “Cry Cry Cry” had a similar way of surprising an unsuspecting audience, both for the crescendo of her vocals and her ability to suddenly switch from powerhouse singer to electric guitar shredder without losing a step. Similar dexterity was found in the voice and hands of Krasno, another audience favorite, whose reference in his Hendrix cover to “stand(ing) up next to a mountain” fit in well with a neon backdrop of mountain ridges meant to evoke the San Gabriel Mountains.
Jenny Lewis, singing with Goldsmith on harmony, gave voice in song to some of the spicier sentiments that some of the speakers brought with her song “Rise Up With Fists!!” Rufus Wainwright lent the most dulcet tones imaginable to the Beatles’ “Across the Universe,” which got an extra kick when Griffin Goldsmith added a healthy backbeat to the normally not-so-percussive tune halfway through. Lord Huron’s contribution to the evening was a cover of the underrated Kinks song “Strangers,” with Ray Davies’ appropriate unity theme no worse for the wear 55 years on.
Although rain was not the theme of the evening, dealing from depression was, in part — which made Paisley’s and Goldsmith’s duet of their original song “Raining Inside” one of the major knockouts of the evening. Their sole public co-write to date kind of quietly came out as a one-off single under Paisley’s name 10 months ago, and getting the rare chance to hear them sing it together was in itself a possible cure for the blues.
Backstage, Goldsmith had navigated a question about how the devastation that ripped homes and studios away from his family had affected his psyche over the past year. There is a gentle stoicism to his public persona, although his music erupts from reflectiveness into passion. Although he projects a kind of zen calm more often than not, which is an especially useful quality as an organizer and band leader, he acknowledged his reaction to the fires is a work in progress, philosophically as well as emotionally.
“It’s tough, because I always want to be honest with myself and my emotional state and let my feelings hit me and address them the ways I need to. But at the same time, I feel like my emotional state is something that I manifest. So sometimes I don’t want to enlarge too much” the reliving of negative feelings. “But today, I have allowed that. I have watched old videos of the next morning after the fire. And it’s good for me. But I refuse to let it make me go dark, to make me bitter. I know it’s gonna change me, but I just don’t want it to change me in those ways. There’s still a lot of kind of wrestling with it to make sure it’s not gonna have more of a influence on who I am than I want it to.”
After the event was over at the Pasadena Civic, a few dozen VIP guests and sponsors moved a couple of blocks over to the Altadena Girls facility for an after-party. Even there, the talent chosen had more than a professional reason for being there. The DJ for the occasion was Jeffrey Paradise, who performs as Poolside. He, too, lost his home in the fire, escaping with his girlfriend, his blind senior dog and little else.
“I feel lucky to be a part of it, but it is emotional, to be honest, to revisit losing all my stuff and my house,” said Paradise, before going out to do his DJ set. “But it’s a bit cathartic being around others who have done the same and celebrate in the midst of suffering. I just went up to my land with my burned out house a couple days ago, and the sunset was beautiful, and I was just like, fuck, I see why I fell in love with this.” He recently sold his vacant lot for what he considered a rock-bottom price. “We were underwater, and even all of our insurance money to our mortgage company was still not enough. And al my neighbors are stuck dealing with permitting issues. I miss my house and I wish I was rebuilding, but I’m also very glad to feel like a new book has been pulled off the shelf.
“I’m glad to be a part of revisit this awareness, with people reaching out and supporting one another. It’s still just as present as ever for most people who have lost everything. But there’s a good sides of losing everything in that you see how the really good side of humanity has come out in certain ways. I’ve thought we should behave more like there’s a fucking disaster in our everyday life. We’d all be a lot more at peace.”
And with that, Paradise went out to spin an incongruous but apropos dance remix, of Nicolette Larson singing “It’s gonna take a lotta love, to get us through the night…”
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