Looking for things to do in the Bay Area this weekend? The Do List has you covered with concerts, festivals, exhibitions, plays, performances and more.
You can listen to this week’s episode above with Gabe Meline, Nastia Voynovskaya and Sam Lefebvre, or read about our picks below.
Fire Relief: First things first, this has been a trying week for people who live up in the North Bay. The Kincade Fire has caused evacuations across Sonoma County and, for the rest of the Bay Area, air quality alerts. To help, the California Academy of Sciences is offering free admission through Nov. 1 to those in mandatory evacuation zones – and also, the SFMOMA is offering free admission to its permanent collection to the general public. If you need to get out of the smoke this weekend, remember that the de Young and Legion of Honor also offer free admission on Saturdays to San Francisco residents, too. Details here.
FKA Twigs: British art-pop singer FKA Twigs is one of the most groundbreaking artists of the past decade—not just a triple threat, but a quintuple threat. Her voice is an angelic falsetto; she writes uncomfortable, probing lyrics that flip gender stereotypes; her CGI music videos are out of this world. And, after taking a couple years off from touring due to health issues, she came back stronger than ever with an incredible new skillset: pole dancing, which she uses as a form of theatrical storytelling. She’ll be at Oakland’s Fox Theater on Nov. 6 and 7. Details here.
Día de los Muertos: If you’ve got a kid who loved the Pixar film Coco, you’ll have some opportunities to show them a deeper look at the tradition of Día de los Muertos. At the Oakland Museum of California, there’s an exhibit called ¡El Movimiento Vivo!: Chicano Roots of El Día de los Muertos, all about the Chicano activists who brought Day of the Dead traditions to the United States. You’ll see ofrendas, and hear stories from elders in Oaxaca. That’s up now through Feb. 16 of next year. Details here.
And another Día de Los Muertos tradition is brewing in the East Bay: the Oakland Ballet’s Luna Mexicana. This is a dance performance in partnership with Ballet Folklórico México Danza with a Frida Kahlo theme, but it’s also a celebration of music, costumes, candles, and food. Tamales and Mexican hot chocolate will be served in the gorgeous art-deco lobby of the Paramount Theater, another great way to introduce kids to this tradition. That’s on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 1 and 2, at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland. Details here.
Lucinda Williams: Sam plays in a band, and while they were on tour recently, they spent a lot of time listening to Lucinda Williams. She’s had an unusual career, in part because her breakthrough album arrived about 20 years after her first album. It’s called Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, and it’s an achingly beautiful record about longing, forgetting and escape with an atmosphere of road-weary realism. In the van, on repeat, it served as a soundtrack for many of the same cities and landmarks referenced on the album. Twenty years since its release, Lucinda Williams plays the album in its entirety—plus a second career-wide set—on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Fox Theater in Oakland. Details here.
‘Blanket the Homeless’: So many of our neighbors have lost homes and been forced onto the streets during the Bay Area’s housing crisis, and the problem is only getting worse. A bunch of artists recently teamed up for a benefit compilation called Blanket the Homeless, which raises money for an organization that passes out hygiene kits and supplies to unsheltered people in the Bay Area. The compilation features Fantastic Negrito, Rainbow Girls, the Stone Foxes and many more. The Stone Foxes’ Shannon Koehler and producer Scott Mickelson perform live for a benefit concert and record release show. That’s on Nov. 7, at the Independent in San Francisco. Details here.