Yo La Tengo, Sleater-Kinney, Sylvan Esso, Tune-Yards, Rufus Wainwright, Nels Kline To Play Yoko Ono Tribute At LA’s Broad Museum

In conjunction with “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind,” the excellent new Yoko Ono exhibition opening this weekend (May 23) at Los Angeles’ Broad Museum, the contemporary art museum has announced a special concert for Aug. 8 entitled “Yoko Only,” which will feature renowned musicians performing songs from Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band.

Yuka Honda, (eucademix, Cibo Matto), has assembled an impressive supergroup with Yo La Tengo and Nels Cline (Wilco, Nels Cline Singers) to interpret selections from Yoko Ono and Plastic Ono Band, with guest vocalists and musicians, including Sleater-Kinney, Sylvan Esso, Tune-Yards, Rufus Wainwright, Theo Bleckmann, Finom, Emi Helfrich, Satomi Matsuzaki, Maggie Parkins and Patrick Shiroishi.

“Music was the first thing on Yoko’s artistic mind; it began during her childhood and grew through many stages of her life,” Honda said in a statement. “Like dandelion seeds, her ideas flew and landed in our hearts, opening our mind’s eye to new skies. On Aug. 8, we will unite to celebrate the flower garden she gave us.”

Plastic Ono Band was a late-1960s collaboration with the John Lennon, something of an artist collective and a vehicle for the duo’s collaborative music, sound art projects, films, conceptual art projects and recordings. Lennon songs record with Plastic Ono include such classics as “Working Class Hero” and “Mother” and are integral parts of the canon.

“Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind” marks Ono’s first solo museum exhibition in Southern California and is organized in collaboration with Tate Modern, London. Ono, who witnessed the atrocities of war in her native Japan was a groundbreaking and well-established conceptual artist well before she meant John Lennon. Working in a variety of mediums, her work and political activism, especially for the always-needed cause of peace, has helped shape contemporary culture for more than seven decades.

The “Yoko Only” event, according to the organizers will include the “avant-garde to Billboard hits”, and iwill take place on the Broad’s East West Bank Plaza.

“The programming for Yoko Ono: Music of The Mind will offer Angelinos opportunities to experience the breadth of Ono’s artistic production from music to performance to Fluxus activations that actively engage visitors,” stated Ed Patuto,” the Broad Director of Audience Engagement “Yuka Honda was invited to curate Yoko Only because of her intimate knowledge of Yoko’s creative intentions that informed her music.”

A preview of the art show at the Broad revealed a wide range of Ono’s work and mediums, including a number of interactive pieces inviting viewers to shake hands through a hole in art canvas, hammer nails, climb inside body-sized black bags and join shadows among other participant-based installations.

Tickets for “Yoko Only,” which can be purchased here, include admission to Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, The Shop at The Broad, and the museum’s third-floor rotating collection galleries during the event.