Staff Editor on January 15th, 2022

0

L.A. Witch cast a spell across the Lodge Room on Friday night — which marked their first hometown headline show in more than three years.

With this being their first top billing in years due to the pandemic, the show was a double celebration of their “Play with Fire” sophomore album, which came out in August of 2020 (one would have been blind if they didn’t see the billboards advertising that album across Los Angeles) and “One Way or the Highway,” their 2021 split 7-inch single with the Coathangers. The incantations were amplified by the extravagant projections put on by the Mad Alchemist, which bassist Irita Pai called “the creepy light show.”

The goth-psych-punk trio takes you on a journey of thoughts on life with songs such as “I Wanna Lose,” exploring the idea that after losing you “I control myself / nobody else / Choose to lose / and free yourself.” And at the same time, it sometimes helps to have someone by your side, as the trio suggests in “Get Lost”: “Save me from myself / Take me where you go / To get lost from myself / To get lost from my soul.”

The band loves to keep things organized, neat and clean. As the audience cheered after each song, singer-guitarist Sade Sanchez thanked them. The amps were lined up in a straight row along the back wall. Equipment was tagged with the band’s name. And though the setlist intermingled songs from their various album and EP releases, there was a methodology used: Songs from their self-titled album and “Play With Fire” were played in order as found on those specific albums.

Pai summed up the night: “We’re stoked that we’re here and stoked that you guys are here.”

Tremours opened up the night with ethereal sounds and quiet vocals. The early arriving crowd sent them off with cheers. Vocalist-guitarist Lauren Andino did double duty on the night, backing up L.A. Witch. Rocker Poppy Jean Crawford provided the audience with her combo Lucille Ball-Audrey Hepburn grace, where a mishap was followed up with an elegant sip of a drink. And she did what every singer wished they had the courage to do, go after an impolite jerk in the audience.

L.A. Witch setlist: Kill My Baby Tonight, Fire Starter, Brian, Untitled, I Wanna Lose, Motorcycle Boy, Drive Your Car, Gen-Z, Dark Horse, Sexorexia, Baby in Blue Jeans, True Believers, Get Lost, Ghost on the Highway. Encore: Heart of Darkness, Starred.

Photos and recap by Notes From Vivace