Yo La Tengo, Kathleen Hanna and More Celebrate Yoko Ono's Music at Sold-Out Broad Museum Tribute
A 19-song tribute to Yoko Ono's catalogue unfolded outside the Broad museum in Los Angeles on August 8, 2026, with Yo La Tengo serving as house band for a sold-out night of performances spanning Ono's avant-garde experiments and her Billboard-charting singles.
The concert, titled "Yoko Only: A Night Celebrating the Music of Yoko Ono," was curated by Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto, who hand-selected the performers and songs and played keyboards throughout. Yo La Tengo — the New Jersey indie trio of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew — expanded to a five-piece for the event, joined by Honda and by Nels Cline of Wilco on guitar. Rolling Stone
Ono, aged 93, was not in attendance.
The set ran from "AOS," performed by composer and jazz singer Theo Bleckmann, to "Walking on Thin Ice," delivered by Sylvan Esso's Amelia Meath, who also sang "Sisters O Sisters." Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney shared the stage for "No, No, No." Satomi Matsuzaki of Deerhoof performed "Tabeti," Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards took on "We Are All Water," and Ira Kaplan introduced Ono's 1973 track "What Did I Do!" Rolling Stone
The Broad's full guest list extended further still: Theo Bleckmann, Finom, Dave Harrington, Kathleen Hanna, Emi Helfrich, Satomi Matsuzaki, Maggie Parkins, Patrick Shiroishi, Corin Tucker, Sylvan Esso, Tune-Yards and Rufus Wainwright all appeared across the night. The Broad
The concert ran from 7:30 PM to 11:00 PM at the East West Bank Plaza, the outdoor space at the Broad's Grand Avenue location. It was presented as part of the museum's summer concert series and staged in conjunction with "Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind," a major exhibition running from May 23 to October 11, 2026. The Broad
Honda assembled the supergroup by matching songs to guest musicians whose own work reflects Ono's themes — peace, feminism, the body, the voice as instrument — and the arrangements moved across the full span of Ono's catalogue, from the experimental and avant-garde to the dancefloor hits she released with the Plastic Ono Band. The Broad
For Ono, whose six-decade career has encompassed visual art, conceptual instruction pieces, performance and songwriting, the tribute placed the music itself at the centre. Ono's singles "Walking on Thin Ice" and "No, No, No" both charted on Billboard — the former a post-punk dance track produced by John Lennon in 1981, the latter from her 1981 album of the same name — and their presence in the setlist sat alongside deeper catalogue cuts drawn from her Fluxus-era recordings and her work with the Plastic Ono Band.
The museum continues its Ono programming with "I Am Yoko…," a separate event scheduled for August 16, 2026. The Broad
