Echo Park Rising: Hot flashes from a steamy Saturday
Kevin Bronson on
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The biggest heroes at Saturday’s Day 2 of Echo Park Rising were the people carrying around Mister Bottles full of water. Absent a swimming pool [note to self: genius marketing idea for next year], they provided immediate relief on a day someone astutely called, “Echo Park Temperature Rising.” Sprae?
||| Photos by Monique Hernandez
We were tethered to the Buzz Bands LA Stage most of the day [see next post], except for a few jaunts out into the overwhelming crowds, but we had some scouts in the field and here are a few slices of life:
1:20 p.m. — It’s 96 degrees for Fakers, the residents this month at the Echo who do nothing even remotely fake. They shred and sweat, with brothers Joey and Andy Siara, Cameron Dmytryk, Travis Shettel and Benjamin Heywood trading off on vocals. They play every set as if it’s the answer to the ages-old question: WTF?
1:50 p.m. — Folk-pop outfit Livingmore are pretty as a picture and well worth the quick walk to Lot 1 Cafe, with Alex Moore and Spencer Livingston harmonizing sweetly. It would get much louder at Lot 1 later, but this was a fine warm-up. Musically, y’know.
2:20 p.m. — It’s 97 degrees on the main stage for the Buttertones, who are new to me and have a cool Doors vibe. Another note to self: Find out more about the Buttertones.
3:05 p.m. — Max and the Moon frontman John Velasquez is wearing a Local Natives T-shirt at the Echo, and there’s some of that fabric in the L.A. quartet’s ebullient and increasingly bolder new songs. From familiar favorite “Out of My Head” to the clean two-part harmonies of Velasquez and Matt Couchois on “Mexico” to the pulsing bass and aerial hooks of new single “Harps,” they probed pretty poptastic.
3:15 p.m. — JJUUJJUU play their hard, dirty psych-rock to a small crowd at the Blue Collar Working Dog. It’s ALL CAPS kind of stuff.
4:30 p.m. — Winter’s pop-up show at American Apparel is followed by a protest against the investment company currently embroiled in a legal battle with the clothing-maker’s founder and ousted CEO. It is all very confusing. And it makes the sidewalk almost impassable.
4:35 p.m. — Hannibal Buress is a funny man. His stand-up set on the main stage was a great respite from the music, and he did a bit about wanting to start his own liberal arts college so he could collect thousands of dollars from young people who would end up having the same job they had before they enrolled in his liberal arts college. Totally relatable.
5:10 p.m. — Kim House of Kim and the Created is simply owning it at the Blue Collar Working Dog.
6:30 p.m. — Those pints look awfully tantalizing at the Lost Knight, but we were here to see HOTT MT, the psych-pop outfit who don’t seem to be as weird as they used to be. Whatever they’re doing now, it suits them. Were those a couple of new songs we heard? Not sure, it could’ve been the sweat dripping into our ears.
7 p.m. — In the relative calm of Echoes Under Sunset, Hi Ho Silver Oh soar through songs like “My Confessor,” “Spools” and the single featuring Leslie Stevens, “Showers Without Warning.” Heavenly.
8:10 p.m. — The smoke machine was working overtime during Deap Vally’s main-stage set. Either that, or drummer Julie Edwards was really smokin’,which is quite possible. The blue duo Edwards and singer-guitarist Lindsey Troy continue to raise their game, just in time for a fall tour with Peaches.
8:25 p.m. — A tipsy friend in the beer garden asks us our favorite question: “So who should I see tonight?”
9:20 p.m. — Garage bands heard echoing on Glendale Boulevard. To be fair, we could post that about every hour.
9:30 p.m. — Fartbarf shows up. Those masks have gotta be hot.
9:05 p.m. — The mosh pit begins for Hanni El Khatib’s set at the main stage. It’s a good one, maybe a 8.5 compared to the 7.8 that No Parents had for their set, when they played “Die Hippie Die” so loud you could probably hear it in Laurel Canyon. Like he did earlier this summer when he played the Natural History Museum, El Khatib has muscled his way beyond the while garage-rock thing. It’s also possible he lost a few pounds during his hour onstage.
10:25 p.m. — It’s mercifully comfortable in the Echoplex for Superhumanoids, who are pretty cool themselves, dispensing songs from their forthcoming album “Do You Feel OK?” Which we do, despite the hour and nagging pain in our legs and feet.
great photos and recap–so glad i survived to be able to read about it. reminder to myself–do not wear sandals to a Hanni El Khatib set the mosh will find you.
now if some kind soul can just tell me who the unlisted and un-named band was at The Echo between Bloody Death Skull and Happyness. at 4:50 they were unlisted everywhere i looked. 3 girls on the front line a guy on drums kinda punky and real good…any help out there.
Great recap, this year’s Echo Park Rising was absolutely amazing, the amount of people, bands & overall great positive vibes made this a weekend for the ages.
Did anyone catch that band on the corner of Sunset (Wallgreens)? they used there car to power their whole show, those two guys were pretty awesome, they were called The Eleventh Frequency.