The Growlers, Beach Goth Day 1; photo Lauren Ratkowski
The thing about lines is, if you’re bothering to wait in one in the first place, chances are it’s because you really want the thing at the end of it. And so the line really becomes an understood low before the high, a necessary part of the prize-getting process.
As I stood in various amounts of lines at the Observatory for the first day of The Growlers’ annual Beach Goth festival, I further thought to myself, “You know what? You can’t even have a high without a low anyways. That’s just bad science. So in a way, it’s good that Beach Goth is incredibly, inescapably crowded.” And then I continued to stand there, now smiling confidently, wherever I was lucky enough to be, as the bands, the crowds, and the donut-ice-cream-sandwiches being sold at the Afters booth reminded me what it’s like to relish the gift of life.
(That’s all I’m going to say about how crowded it was. So just know that it was, that I wish it wasn’t, but that it also by no means stained the experience.)
Speaking of which, you can’t have crowds without people, and the people at Beach Goth were pretty cool people. Like a tame version of what I imagine Burning Man to be, there were bizarre/sexual/hilarious costumes galore. The amount of Halloween spirit was enough to keep me occupied whenever I decided to peruse my surroundings, and I was able to have friendly conversations with literally everyone I stood next to throughout the day. To my great pleasure, I quickly found common interests and established a rapport with everyone I met, and even befriended a contextually rare, 50 year old couple (but they were younger than ever, let me tell you).
As for the lineup of artists, it was quite an eclectic mix. There was not a single genre of music overlooked, and I found myself with plenty of options to satisfy whatever sonic craving I had.
James Blake, Beach Goth Day 1; photo Lauren Ratkowski
My day started with the talented quartet of adorable Spanish chicas known as HINDS. As per usual, they played their songs with their trademark brand of infectious, playful, honest joy and passion. Claiming to have been “hungover”, their taut, energetic performance suggested quite otherwise.
With a unique blend of harmonies, angst, melody, and garageness, their songs beg to be moved to, moshed to, sway to, and many other verbs of this nature. Even the relentless beating of the sun couldn’t keep the crowd still, with the Hinds’ staple closer, “Davy Crockett,” sending the audience into a crowd-surfing, mosh-pitting frenzy of spirited joy.
And because good things sometimes happen, the offensively skillful, CHICANO BATMAN followed Hinds. Taking the stage in identical, fitted blue suits, their collective cohesion seemed to exist on a whole other level. And if you’ve listened to their songs before, you know that each instrument, and respective musician, seems to be battling one another in an epic duel for supreme musical glory. For this reason I felt as though they were the most technically impressive performance of the day.
Their stage presence was just so tantalizing and engaging. Frontman Bardo Martinez for instance, when he wasn’t inducing crowd-wide swoons with his serene, soulful, pitch-perfect vocals, played his keyboard with reckless abandon, throwing himself on its keys with a deep, awe inspiring fervor for musical expression. It seemed like their whole set was a sing-along experience, all of us brought together collectively as one, drunk off of their audial divinity. As they left the stage, I made a solemn, unbreakable promise to myself: I will see them again as soon as I am able. For my health.
The next band to completely overwhelm me with sensation was VIOLENT FEMMES, whom I have been waiting to see since the early days of my music-listening career. As one of the stagehands brought a charcoal grill onto the stage to serve as part of the drum set, as well as what looked like the largest brass instrument I’ve ever seen, I knew that this long, 10-year buildup would go on to have exactly no let down. When the band kicked things right off with their radio anthem, “Blister in the Sun,” it became clear that I was right.
The crowd sang along loudly and lovingly for most of the set, as the band effortlessly shredded all the songs you would have wanted them to play. And they were just as weird as you would have hoped, with Gordon Gano often deliberately, tastefully playing wrong notes or dissonant chords, and Brian Ritchie embarking on some truly, unconventionally spectacular bass soloing. In a lineup full of younger acts, this band of 50 year-olds played with more energy and vivacity than most of them combined. Go figure.
Patti Smith, Beach Goth Day 1; photo Lauren Ratkowski
While on the topic of older acts blowing it out of the water, PATTI SMITH was a force to be reckoned with that night. Starting off with a tight, spritely performance of “Redondo Beach,” she made it immediately clear that she doesn’t age like other human beings. There was a youthfulness to her stage presence, an outright refusal to bend to the weight of time.
She and her band played with a strict adherence to perfection, jamming out often intricate compositions with expertly assured ease. It’s also worth mentioning that her discourse with the crowd was the most intimate of any act I’ve seen.
She talked to us with a sense of learned wisdom and a lust for life, at one point demanding we raise our hands high into the air, and proceeding to yell at us, with soul-shaking passion, to treasure the lives we have, not because of what they consist of, but because we get to have them at all. I looked around to proudly see not a single phone in the air, a wholly, unique concert experience in this, the age of Snapchat. She, a 69 year old human being, managed to pull an entire crowd with a mean age of 19, into the pure bliss of the present moment, where social media couldn’t possibly even exist. And not just with the vigor of her words, but with the sounds of her art.
On the heels of her boisterous rant about life, she closed her set with a rambunctious, highly relevant cover “My Generation,” for which she swapped the usual acoustic for an electric guitar, and proceed to belt out a raunchy, fuzzed out, soul-f*cking solo. Truly a sight to behold.
At several points during her set, she split the night with the declaration, “This is the coolest fucking festival ever!” And you know what, after having reeled in the splendor of its lineup and atmosphere, I would have a hard time arguing otherwise.