Los Angeles-based singer and songwriter Z Berg brought together a killer assortment of guests Saturday night at Pico Union Project for her holiday party.
The singer is friends with basically everyone in the LA scene. That showed in spades as one after another trotted out. Jackson Browne, Azure Ray, Alex Greenwald (Phantom Planet, Phases), Ryan Ross (Panic! At The Disco, The Young Veins), Pearl Charles, Ethan Gruska, The Chantels made stops on the stage before Z Berg closed out with a full solo set following an intermission.
Azure Ray came out and did a medley of maybe my two favorite songs of theirs — “Sleep” and “Rise”. Afterwards, Z Berg asked if she was dying and this was like a Make-a-Wish scenario.
Alex Greenwald also dusted off an old Phantom Planet classic “I Don’t Mind”. That’s a band I would love to see make a comeback, they had some killer tunes.
Closing out the guest part of the night, Jackson Browne did a couple of his songs he recorded with Nico — with Z Berg helping on vocals for “These Days”. Then it was a Z Berg solo set with help from her friends.
It all culminated in a performance of Z Berg’s new holiday-tinged single “The Bad List” with Ryan Ross. Then everyone who participated came on stage for “All Out of Tears”.
It must be pretty cool to be able to pull together such a rad show and it was certainly great to be a viewer of it. Z Berg has made a habit of putting together these specialty shows in LA and it’s one of the things to love most about this music community.
Words by Mark Ortega
Photos by Tim Aarons
JACKSON BROWNE & Z BERG:
AZURE RAY:
ALEX GREENWALD:
RYAN ROSS:
PEARL CHARLES:
ALLIE CROW BUCKLEY:
