Overview:
How a viral musician packed City Center in Koreatown for a solo show.
The hottest concert in Koreatown this past weekend may have been an impromptu, after-hours, one-man show at a closed shopping mall.
As the clock approached 10 p.m. last Friday, City Center on 6th was bustling.
Scores of people — along with their families, friends and pets — flooded into the three-story building for a “uniquely LA” experience.
The crowds didn’t gather for Korean eats at H Mart. They came to catch viral saxophonist Nathaniel Young.
Sandwiched between a post office and a pharmacy on the ground floor of City Center, Young performed an hour of original music for free to hundreds of people packed around three levels of atriums dotted with blind box stores and skincare shops.
A 27-year-old Los Angeles resident, Young is no stranger to performing in spaces uncommon for jazz musicians — tunnels in Norway, the foot of Teotihuacán’s Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico, deserted parking structures and empty churches across LA.
He’s racked up millions of views on his social media videos. As his Instagram handle @NathanialPOV suggests, his posts are often recorded from the perspective of the built-in camera in his Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
Young typically announces upcoming performances to his combined 1.1 million social media followers a day or two — and sometimes just hours — beforehand.
For the City Center performance, the announcement drew people from around Los Angeles County, including Will Baker, who told The LA Local he made the drive from North Hollywood.
Before the show began, Baker, 25, leaned on the banister of the mall’s third floor, peering down at a lone microphone stand on the ground floor surrounded by a growing crowd.
“I think it’s awesome that the mall is letting him do this and letting him get a crowd in here and perform for it,” Baker said. “It’s such a cool way to use spaces because we have so many spaces like this in cities all over the place that’d be so fun to hear musicians play in — and they should do it more.”
Young began his set promptly at 10 p.m., without an introduction or opening act.
He quickly commanded the boisterous crowd of hundreds around him, quieting them with the croons of his saxophone.
Many listeners sat with their eyes closed, allowing the notes to overtake their senses.
For Geraldine Lonsdale and her friends Nicole Carre and Paulina Paredes, the soulful tones of Young’s sax drew the trio of Koreatown residents into the mall after grabbing dinner and drinks nearby.
“We couldn’t see him because everyone’s so tall… so we went up the escalator and were like, ‘Okay, this is cool.’ But then we’re like, ‘Is he famous?’” Lonsdale laughed.
Paredes said the sound echoing off the walls and glass added a nice touch to an otherwise unassuming mall.
“I feel like this also grants greater access to this type of music because usually, to listen to this kind of music, you have to be at a jazz club or symphony — not at a mall in the middle of K-town,” Carre added.
In a second-floor corner away from the crowds, Edmond Smith of Chatsworth closed his eyes and listened to Young’s last few songs.
The 35-year-old has seen Young and his collaborators perform across LA before — most recently at a church in downtown.
While shopping malls may represent a bygone era of American consumerism, where young people of decades past would congregate, Smith told The LA Local that Friday night’s performance reminded him of the power of community engagement in such a setting.
“It’s wonderful to see live music, and it’s even more beautiful to see everybody participating in that space that we can all share and experience together,” Smith said.