UNKLE plays Lodge Room Dec. 2, its first Los Angeles show since 2023

James Lavelle's long-running project trades the Fonda for a 500-capacity room in Highland Park on a Wednesday night in early December.

In September 2023, UNKLE played The Fonda Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard's side of town. More than three years later, the return trip is coming much sooner than most of the shows on our calendar: UNKLE plays Lodge Room on Wednesday, Dec. 2, with doors at 7 p.m. and the show at 8 p.m. That's less than four weeks from today.

The date was announced Oct. 29, and tickets are sold through Lodge Room's own site. Lodge Room holds about 500 people, which makes this a far closer encounter than the Fonda, and a rare chance to see this project in a room where the low end and the visuals aren't swallowed by distance.

UNKLE is the long-running vehicle of James Lavelle, and it has never been a conventional band. For years it existed mostly as a studio project, a rotating cast of collaborators gathered around Lavelle's records, before it was turned into a live act at all; both NME and JamBase covered the moment UNKLE debuted as a live band. That history is part of why a UNKLE show still feels like an occasion rather than just another tour stop.

The most recent full-length chapter on record is The Road: Part II / Lost Highway, released in 2019, the second installment of the Road series. We couldn't find a new UNKLE album announced for this run, so if you're going, go for the catalog and the live show rather than an album cycle.

For a project that spent years as a studio construction, a UNKLE show in a 500-cap room is the closest look you'll get.

The timing matters for another reason. Los Angeles hasn't had UNKLE on a stage since that 2023 Fonda night, and this is a Wednesday in the first week of December, when the city's calendar fills fast with holiday parties and year-end bills. A midweek date in a mid-size room tends to draw the people who really want to be there.

What to expect: an EDM-leaning night from a project that has always moved between electronic production, dark atmospherics and guest voices, built by an artist who treats live shows as productions. Doors at 7 give you an hour to get settled before the 8 p.m. start.

Lodge Room's own box office is the place to go for tickets, and with fewer than four weeks to go and a room of this size, it's worth checking sooner rather than later.

It has been a little more than three years. For a project that has taken long breaks before, that's not unusual. What is unusual is getting to see it this close.

Sources: UNKLE at Lodge Room (JamBase) (jambase.com); Lodge Room Highland Park (lodgeroomhlp.com); James Lavelle (Wikipedia) (wikipedia.com); UNKLE gear up for first-ever live show (NME) (nme.com); UNKLE Debuts as Live Band (JamBase) (jambase.com); UNKLE announce new album The Road: Part 2 (NME) (nme.com)