Citi Sound Vault Live
For music fans, Citi Sound Vault is pretty much the pinnacle: megastar performers from just about every genre stepping away from their posh estates and arena tours to play the sort of up-close-and-personal gigs some of them haven't regularly done for decades. Artists such as Sting, Madonna, Metallica and Eminem have graced the series, and a 2020 Grammys week special continues the tradition by bringing four nights of powerful performers to the Hollywood Palladium. Kicking things off is Coldplay, fresh from the release of their ambitious eighth LP, Everyday Life, followed by Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes, who dropped her soulful solo debut, Jaime, in 2019, and, on night three, Grammy-winning Americana innovator Brandi Carlile. The grand finale comes courtesy of the Jonas Brothers — those three handsome fellas who first emerged in the '00s and tried out a series of winning spinoff projects in the '10s (see Nick's solo career, Joe's DNCE band and Kevin's reality TV career) before reuniting to runaway success around the dawn of the '20s with their fifth studio album, Happiness Begins.
Citi Sound Vault Background
The ongoing series was born in 2017 when Citibank came to a simple but game-changing epiphany: Why only offer early and exclusive access to concerts other people are organizing when they can curate their very own rare gigs? While the company has brought arena-sized artists — Madonna, Katy Perry, Eddie Vedder — to intimate spaces in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, it typically takes over the historic Hollywood Palladium around Grammys week for a wild, nearly weeklong run of shows. The 2017 launch, for example, brought Sting, Metallica, Beck (with a gospel choir, no less) and the Chainsmokers (with pyrotechnics, of course) to the old art deco theater which, it should be noted, has a capacity of 3,700. Citi Sound Vault switched things up in 2018 by lighting up Manhattan's Irving Plaza (capacity 1,025) with performances by a diverse group — 30 Seconds to Mars, Eminem, The National, Childish Gambino and Dave Matthews with Tim Reynolds — before returning to the West Coast in early 2019 with P!nk, Muse and Chris Stapleton. As a bonus, Citi had Guns N' Roses bring '80s hair-metal heat to that ornate 1940s venue in the summer.
