Together Pangea at the Warehouse (pic courtesy of XYTIO)
Sure people of all ages can and do enjoy rock shows but clearly indie rock shows especially the kind that lean to the punk side of things is the sport of teens. If you see a show advertised with bands like Together Pangea, The Lovely Bad Things, The Garden, Cherry Glazerr and more you will surely witness a spectacle of epic proportions. This was the case at the KXLU plus Burger Records presents the "End of The Summer Bash" at the Warehouse venue in El Monte, California (of all places). Hundreds of mostly under 21 kids danced, moshed, and crowd surfed the night away. The epicenter of the mosh pit was right at center stage circling back about 15 feet like a cyclone. In between bands the venue would open side doors on either end of the stage so people could cool down. In the parking lots kids sat displaying their war would proudly... all sweaty and a handful with bleeding necks or knees. At one point I ran into a fellow blogger and as we chatted outside the front entrance her friend (nearly out of breath) came to find her. He had just moshed his ass off to Cherry Glazerr and blood trickled out of his nose. He was sniffing it back up until it really started to flow. I told him he should go to the bathroom and take care of it. He did. Later as the Together Pangea ripped it up I saw him happily flopping about in the cyclone again.
All the bands played so well. Two who I had not seen before impressed me. Criminal Hygiene played super tight garage rock with a grungy undercurrent that had many flavors all good, all propelled by Michael Fore's raspy vocals solid heavy bass and punchy drumming. Dazehounds seemed to have some adoring fans up front and churned out smiles and doo wop punk. By the time Cherry Glazeer took to the stage the size of the crowd seemed to be growing. They played a great set as usual. Garage rock infused with spacey tones like Twin Peaks was invaded by teenage girls. Trick or Treat Dance floor has always been weirdly engaging and now it is quite fashionable too having been featured on Vogue, V Magazine and YSL websites. Tashaki Miyaki with their beautiful mid tempo songs felt like a much needed breather. A time to chill to haunting melodies while catching your breath and wiping away sweat and blood. The audience hung to listen to their sweet sounds some sitting along the walls.
The much needed chill time was about to evaporate instantly as The Garden took to the stage. When Wyatt plugged in his guitar and as Fletcher adjusted the drum kit everyone who was outside piled in. Suddenly the room was packed and from song one the entire room was moving. The mosh pit was in heavy mode. This is a good time to describe this stage. It is good size, wide and deep but literally only about knee high if that. It almost begs you to step up on it and after about 3 songs it seemed like everyone did. People were crowding up there with the multitude of photographers. Pretty soon Fletcher was no where to be seen except for a random flail of a drum stick. I had to push away The Garden t-shirts and tapes and climb up on the merch table to shoot video. It was a great moment. Everyone was into them and a ton of kids were mouthing the words to their short experimental punk songs. The Garden's musical mayhem was a highlight of the night.
The Lovely Bad Things shows are known to be moshy dance parties were people walk away with happy bruises. Apart from crowd pleasers like Darth Lauren and Dinosaur Song, they played 3 new songs. Guitarist singer Camron asked , "Do you mind if we do a new one?" before charging into a punk song that shifted between rapid fire beats. Even though drummer Brayden's mic seemed to be off during "I Just Want You To Go Away" the crowd sang along. They always do a fair amount of shifting to other instruments but whomever seemed to get the guitar was breaking strings and near the end of the set they were nearly guitarless until one appeared. Crowd ate them up.
Pangea, I mean Together Pangea closed out the night with tons of energy and piles of people chilling and dancing on either ends of the stage. William shouted out "Calm Down!" before doing his screech scream beginning of No Feelin (someone grabbed Danny's) mic and snuck in a prepubescent squeal. It was hilarious. Badillac sounded dreamy and cool.My favorite part of any Pangea show is when people join in on the chorus of Too Drunk to Cum -"I want to go outside, Stay out all night, Come back instead, I'll find you in my bed! (and so on)" - AND it sounded particularly fun this night. Hands raised, fists pumping, people screaming and smiling broadly at the same time. Together Pangea kept everyone up and closed out an awesome night of music.
A few words about the venue. Apparently it is a church during the day or was, still is, I am not sure but it is a nice large space. Stage is substantial enough. The large screen above the stage had what looked like multi-colored I phones or bars of soap with the Band Names on top. Looked cool and trippy like something you would see on some 80's Dutch Television variety show. The venue has two nice sized parking lots. The PA is kinda bare bones. No instruments are mic'd and a lot of bands were saying they couldn't hear themselves on stage. Not a good thing but the staff was very cool. They allowed ins and outs and there was a positive vibe there including a magical unicorn prancing around. I heard on instagram that the huge turn out (roughly 400 attendees) at the End of Summer Bash raised enough money so that the venue can purchase a new sound system / PA. I hope they do it right. This venue has tons of potential to put on great shows in the future. In the end, people of all ages walked out into the cool air at 1 am totally satisfied having seen a pretty epic show.
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Robb Donker
If you want to see kick ass pics of this night go here to XYTIO - Tashaki Miyak, Together Pangea, The Lovely Bad Things, Cherry Glazerr, The Garden-
Also- additional pics and coverage here (photos by Angela Ratzlaff)
See Videos at our youtube channel- and special playlist
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