Words & Photos by Elijah J. Hermitt
TV on the Radio played their first ever show at the legendary Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, California on October 15, 2025. This came after a hiatus of six years, and it was as if no time had passed. Passionate fans sang in unison to each song, especially their hit “Wolf Like Me”. Frontmen Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone traded their vocals back & forth as the band emanated their signature sound as clear as when they started nearly 25 years ago.
Bands tap into various kinds of sources to access that unspoken preternatural dust; the jet fuel necessary to sustain a live performance. For some, it’s a supposedly inexhaustible supply, with bountiful touring and playing of the hits. For others, it’s a finite well requiring replenishment with time and coming out of the shadows when cosmically called into the fray. TV on the Radio would be categorized as the latter. When the planetary alignment deems it vital for them to grace the stage, the hailed Brooklynite alt-rock darlings of the aughts always rise to the surface and deliver. And they certainly did exactly that in the heart of Griffith Park at the venerated Greek Theatre.
Although fresh off a long break from touring of more than six years, there was no rust to be found on this well-oiled machine. Shapeshifting over the ebbs & flows of the years, founders Tunde Adebimpe (who recently sat down for a SoCal Sound Session with Nic Harcourt), Kyp Malone, and Jaleel Bunton have assembled a rousing group of artists to continue to bring their eclectic sound to life. Accompanied by longtime members Jahphet Landis on drums and Dave Smoota Smith heading the horn section, they’ve also added bassist Jesske Hume and Yusuke Yamamoto on keys & xylophone.
Each individual was donning wildly different outfits and accouterments. Tunde glided across in a classic all-black fit, while Jaleel arrived barefoot and draped in a kimono-style overshirt and several beaded necklaces. And most strikingly, Kyp threw on his chartreuse-centric outfit — a lime-green, full brim hat, a forest green keffiyeh, and a shimmering fuzzy jacket, complete with gold-studded black loafers.
The contrasting outfits point not only to the varied nature of their sound, but also their individual stage presences. As Kyp stands stoic behind clear-rim glasses with his long, braided, gray beard wisping atop his guitar, Tunde seemingly floats as he gesticulates wildly along with the lyrics. Yet, however different their presentations may be, their vocals are sonically synchronous as ever. The truth is, there are two wolves inside TVOTR: one raucous & boisterous, while the other velvety & wistful. This dichotomy would remain evident throughout the evening.
Kicking off the night by playfully jabbing at the bundled & beanied LA crowd, Tunde let everyone know, “It’s not that cold, Los Angeles! We’re gonna warm the entire thing up anyway, so let’s do it.” Leading off with a simmering rendition of “Young Liars”, the band turned up the heat through some of their most beloved tracks right away. With only five songs in the rearview mirror, much to the surprise & delight of onlookers, they ripped into their smash hit “Wolf Like Me”. After howling with the crowd, a collective boiling temperature had been reached. The energy of the show was now a bubbling perfection maintained throughout the rest of the set.
There were hints of improvisation & vulnerability interwoven within the familiar tracks. As the band started building the beat of “Repetition” (off the 2011 classic album Nine Types of Light), Tunde began to eulogize humankind and our place in this landscape of time & space. “We’re all in the best and the worst of it TOGETHER,” Adebimpe reassured the spectators. His advice on the “idiotic, psycho” autocrats attempting to overtake our existence? He exclaimed, “Jackknife it!” into his microphone, which was caked in reverb and vocal effects. This simple yet biting word jackknife became the off-the-cuff backbone to the song. It was reprised later in the track when Tunde switched from the lyrical mantra of “My repetition…my repetition is this…” to simply “JACKKNIFE, JACKKNIFE, JACKKNIFE, YEAH!” during the song’s culminant peak. The pure bite of this word lent poetic, Dada-esque feelings to the confusion and often misplaced aggression many of us feel in today’s sociopolitical climate.
The encore then began with a moment of collective remembrance, as Tunde dedicated the song and show to the virtuoso D’Angelo, who unfortunately passed away the day prior. They went on to play “Killer Crane,” a song originally written in 2011 to honor their former multi-instrumentalist bandmate, Gerard Smith. Their dear friend sadly died after his battle with cancer, much akin to the recent dedicatee D’Angelo maestro behind the highly esteemed album Voodoo. Though not specifically named, the paralleled mourning-turned-celebration was palpable over the three song encore.
Though they have toured sparingly since, I came in contact with their live show only once before. Going back to 2011, TVOTR played an evening set at the now-defunct Virgin Mobile FreeFest at the Merriweather Post Pavillion. For me personally, this is held in high regard in my pantheon of live music experiences because it was the first show I ever intentionally set out to document. Outfitted with my Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot camera, I nervously awaited along the barricade for the arrival of my favorite band. Below are a few of my photos, now almost a decade and a half old, from that momentous day. A fleeting instant in time which so slightly yet also significantly redirected the winds in my sails.
I share this anecdote with these now slightly rudimentary photos to illustrate how the creativity within artists can cause a spark for so many others. I’ve been to hundreds of shows in my life, but this one in 2011 stuck with me and fabricated a foundation upon which I did not know I would build all these years later. Sitting here now in my thirties, I see the Seeds (auspiciously, the title of the most recent TVOTR album) of many ideas that I’ve taken to this juncture and expanded upon in my craft of live music photography.
As you scroll through the rest of my selections from this phenomenal night under the stars at the Greek Theatre, I implore you to think back to an artist who moved you so profoundly that it altered your trajectory. Defying the passage of time, the music of TV on the Radio remains creatively invigorating to me. In the continued pursuit forward to blossom into an interdisciplinary artist, I’ll surely continue to draw on observations I’ve made of creative role models like Tunde, Kyp, and Jaleel.
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Elijah J. Hermitt is a contributing photographer to The SoCal Sound. You can find more from this concert, as well as other shows on his instagram page. Click here for Instagram link.
