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Break A [Leg]
The sold out Wet Leg concert, a drunken film festival, and tattoos at SFPL
When a Craigslist seller magically finds additional resale tickets, do not buy those tickets! Friends and I had decided to spend New Year’s Eve at a sold-out ABBA Glitter Disco party. Ever determined, we looked for resale tickets, accepting that the chance to ring in the new year with “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” would likely involve a slight premium. Flash forward to our tipsy crew arriving at the Great Northern in great spirits only to discover that five of our six resale tickets were fake. But lesson learned: Many things can be solved with a smile and cash payment.
Consider a verified resale platform for the sold out Wet Leg tour, dress to the nines for a gallery fashion show, and find a bar stool at Oakland’s Drunken Film Fest.
Concert | Wet Leg: The Moisturizer Tour
Category: Music
Date: Tuesday, September 30th @ 8pm (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: Fox Theater (East Bay)
Price Range: $48+ (subject to resale market)
Why I Care: Earlier this year I debated driving 2.5 hours at 9 months pregnant to coincide with a tour stop. But since my parents read this newsletter: I would clearly never be so reckless with their grandchild. British indie rock band Wet Leg first took over my Spotify with their 2022 release “Chaise Lounge,” proceeded by “Wet Dream”. The band is now touring with their latest album, moisturizer, which beat out a resurrected Oasis for the number one album in the UK. The band’s meteoric rise is reflected in the sea of sold out concerts, making verified resale your new best friend.
Book Talk | Everything is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde
Category: Literary
Date: Thursday, October 2nd @ 6pm (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: Mechanics' Institute (SF)
Price Range: $15
Why I Care: Author J. Hoberman spent over three decades in the New York underground as a writer for The Village Voice. His book Everything is Now dives into the archives of 1960’s musicians, artists, poets, and filmmakers as they navigated the third spaces of the New York City subculture scene. The book talk is your chance to hear Hoberman discuss the role of now-famous outsider creatives like Bob Dylan and Yayoi Kusama, along with lesser-known voices that still left their mark on cultural production.
Mill Valley Film Festival | Steal This Story, Please!
Category: Film
Date: Sunday, October 5th @ 3:30pm (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (East Bay)
Price Range: $20
Why I Care: Mill Valley Film Festival was founded almost fifty years ago to bring independent cinema, both international and domestic, to the North Bay. The event features five venues that showcase films, discussions, and workshops involving over two-hundred filmmakers. Steal This Story, Please! is one of the festival’s documentaries that follows Amy Goodman, activist and host of Democracy Now!. Goodman and fellow journalists discuss how the relationship between journalism, mainstream media, and politics have disintegrated in parallel with her own experiences covering news from across the globe.
Interested in checking out the wider festival? Consider a festival pass.
Opening Reception & Fashion Show | Karl: The Art of Fashion
Category: Art & Fashion
Date: Friday, October 3rd @ 6pm (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: Levi’s Plaza (SF)
Price Range: Free
Why I Care: Bay Area Black Art Week, aka Nexus, runs October 1st through 5th with gallery talks, open studios, and celebrations. Last year SFH[N]C co-led a panel on collecting, but this year I’m spotlighting gallery space Karl. Karl launched during SF Art Week as a space for Bay Area galleries like Jonathan Carver Moore, COL Gallery, and Re.Riddle to curate joint exhibitions. The Art of Fashion showcases Tony award-winning designer Brandin Vaughn, whose client roster casually includes Beyoncé. The reception opens at 6pm, but stick around for the 7pm fashion show before heading to Black Art Week’s Global Groove ReMix afterparty.
PUSHfest Dance Festival
Category: Dance
Date: Saturday, October 4th @ 1pm (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: PUSH Dance Company (SF)
Price Range: $35
Why I Care: PUSH Dance Company is celebrating twenty years of creating space for dancers of color. Before establishing the company’s permanent SF studio, founder Raissa Simpson interviewed artists and organizations across the Bay to build a framework for bringing education, creativity, and sanctuary to the communities she serves. PUSHfest, the company’s annual festival, presents four diverse programs featuring choreography from PUSH’s internal artists, local Bay Area companies, and independent dancers nationwide. The weekend offers audiences a rich variety of dance forms and choreographic voices.
Artist Talk | Living Tattoo Traditions: American Irezumi and Beyond
Category: Art
Date: Friday, October 3rd @ 4pm (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: San Francisco Public Library Main Library (SF)
Price Range: Free
Why I Care: Living Tattoo Traditions: American Irezumi and Beyond brings together twenty-five Bay Area artists celebrating identity and culture through tattoo artistry. Featured artist Takahiro Kitamura opened State of Grace Tattoo in San Jose's Japantown over twenty-seven years ago, delivering storytelling through his Japanese heritage. Irezumi means ‘inserting ink’, a reference to that heritage. Friday’s event is a chance to hear from the artists firsthand, but don’t sleep on Thursday’s opening reception, which will include live taiko drumming in the library atrium.
Drunken Film Fest 2025
Category: Film
Date: Wednesday, October 8th @ 7pm (Add to Google Calendar)
Location: Temescal Brewing (East Bay)
Price Range: Free
Why I Care: Who doesn’t love community building over a comedy and a pint? Drunken Film Festival is an annual free event that brings independent films to Oakland bars. Imported from the land of pubs, the festival first began in England in 2015 and is kicking off its eighth year of presenting avant-garde film, animation, and a smattering of other genres. Each bar has its own programming, making this the best kind of slow burn bar crawl. Grab a drink (NA included) and a ballot to support your local bars, cheer on independent filmmakers, and vote for your favorite movie with fellow barmates.
Next Drop: Thursday, October 9th*
*Note SFH[N]C may have a modified schedule in the coming weeks
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