Echo Park Rising, Day 2: Getting a rise out of Plague Vendor, Meatbodies

on
0
Plague Vendor at Echo Park Rising (Photo by Shabnam Ferdoski)
Plague Vendor at Echo Park Rising (Photo by Shabnam Ferdoski)

The second day of Echo Park Rising on Friday was upside-down.

Until Plague Vendor and Meatbodies turned the Echoplex into a roiling mass of humanity late in the evening, the hot spot was the west end of the festival. If you’d attended any of the first five EPRs, that was a departure, and it meant several six-block sprints between the new Lost Lot Stage (across Sunset from the Lost Knight) to the Echo, Echoplex and Taix.

||| Also: See another photo gallery below.

Not until Hundred Waters’ late-starting set just past 9 p.m. did the Liberty Stage, the main stage located behind Taix, draw a big crowd. And while excellent sets from Charlie Overbey and Jonny Fritz earlier were underattended, the Lost Lot and its surrounding rooms (among them Lot 1 Cafe, the Lost Knight, the Lost Room) were poppin’.

In particular, Draemings overcame some early sound problems to deliver a roaring set, which was followed by Holychild’s 40 minutes of candied pop (the only EPR gig we’ve ever seen to feature a mid-set wardrobe change).

The day was a lot like the way Sugar Candy Mountain described it: “I’m just sweaty and stinky and covered in cat hair.” There was no shortage of places to sweat, and there were rewarding sets in many of the smaller venues: David Scott Stone’s synth magic at Trencher; Hydro Kitten’s ephemeral grit at Blank City Records (and, later, Non Plus Ultra); Niantic’s rip-roaring bombast at Lot 1 Café; and the bounce of Freddy Spacer and Iconique at the Lost Room.

Highlights from earlier in the evening included the Veers’ opening set at the Echo (where was everybody?); the 1-2-3 punch of Cones, NVDES and Harriet Brown at the Echoplex; Blond Ambition’s underattended display of songcraft at the Taix Champagne Room; and the Marias’ heavenly turn at Semi-Tropic.

Plague Vendor, though. As a line stretched down Glendale Boulevard to get into the Echoplex, they played a set worthy of their 2016 album title “Bloodsweat” and debuted a new song. Brandon Blaine implored fans to put away their phone and mosh, and big pit formed. At the end, he fell backwards into the crowd, which held him aloft as he raged on. And after some of the crowd turned over Meatbodies matched Plague Vendor’s energy volt for volt. If you were looking for the true headlining sets of Friday’s Echo Park rising, they were it.