After a meteoric rise, it's a dazzling homecoming for the L.A. quintet, who filled the "really big room' with genuine warmth and ambition.

 
Coming home is a recurring theme in pop music, but Los Angeles must have looked a little different to the Airborne Toxic Event on Friday, as the band stood on the elegant stage of a sold-out Walt Disney Concert Hall. The quintet's return to base follows a dazzling two-year rise, not far removed from its days as an unknown act on the local club scene.

This wasn't just another gig to singer-guitarist Mikel Jollett, who aimed to fill "this really big room" with a performance of genuine warmth and ambition. "This is really weird, right?" he asked, as if talking to a roomful of friends who'd joined the band for a night of cultural trespassing.

From the group's self-titled debut were the radio hits ("Wishing Well" and "Sometime Around Midnight"), still weighted with sadness and hope, unfolding at Disney with the help of many musical reinforcements. Throughout the two-hour concert, the Airborne Toxic Event was joined by the strings of the Calder Quartet, then the Belmont High School Marching Band, a children's choir, mariachi players and Mexican folklore dancers, among others.