Kevin Bronson on August 1st, 2010

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“You should check out the band that’s going to play outside in a little while,” a man told me in a bar early Saturday evening. “They’re something special.”

I had ducked into a restaurant in Rainbow Harbor, a haven for tourists, families and chain joints on the waterfront south of downtown Long Beach. The man turned out to be the father of Delta Spirit singer Matt Vasquez, who waxed poetic on his son’s band while I sat amused and delighted a band dad would be street-teaming in a Chili’s bar filled with conventioneers.

• ||| Photo gallery by Laurie Scavo

Delta Spirit was exactly the reason I headed to LBC on Saturday, and on a resplendent summer night as the sun went down Vasquez and his bandmates did not disappoint. Only a week after headlining a sold-out El Rey Theatre, they delivered a powerful 45-minute set to a largely young crowd of about 500 around a small (underpowered) amphitheater situated between two restaurants and the boardwalk.

The P.A. proved too small for the music, and the un-raised stage actually prevented most from actually seeing the band, but Delta Spirit brought its own energy, racing through tracks off “Ode to Sunshine” and its new album “History From Below” as fans surged forward, crowd surfers frolicked and the sun set over the harbor.

The free concert, mounted by Long Beach development folks and co-promoted by Fingerprints record store, turned out to be the perfect way to spend a summer evening. Delta Spirit was preceded onstage by three other Long Beach-based bands – the Fling (whose own very good album “When the Madhouses Appear” comes out later this month), Tijuana Panthers and the Brooke Lee Catastrophe.