Posted on Aug 19 2011 06:06 PM
This whole weekend was fantastic. It's been a week since Reverb Weekend '11 kicked off and I've had some time to collect my thoughts. I will proceed to type these thoughts:
Surfer Joe + Boss Combo were great. Didn't get to see much of them at the convention (obviously), but I caught them on Monday with The Bodysnatchers. It was great talking them after the show, really cool bunch of guys. Lorenzo makes me laugh, I'm glad they were all able to make it down for this.
The Member Jam was awesome. There's something really awesome about seeing unrehearsed musicians I love and respect just screwing around and having fun. I keep hearing Dave's "It was in tune when I bought it" in my head and laughing.
The Legends Jam is always a pleasure. Us SoCal people tend to take it for granted, but it really reminded me what a great community we have down here and the giants that walk among us. I was really happy to see Davie Allan, as I tend to miss his shows whenever I know they are coming. Seeing him (backed by Dusty and Mike, no less) was an excellent show.
I was completely blown away by The Deadbeats. I've heard so much talk about them and caught the KALX radio broadcast but I was still not prepared for them. I must echo everything that everyone else has said: they were phenomenal and are just too damn good to call it quits right now. Don't you dare do that!
BTW major props to Abe for Dick Dale-ing his way through the final song on the pier. I do not envy being in that position at all.
Meshugga Beach Party really impressed me as well. I always just assumed they were some dumb gimmick band and I am really glad to have been proven wrong. Very entertaining show, excellent musicians, and the music was good too. Glad they made it down.
Tequila Worms are always great, and I swear I heard the word "drummer" about 50 times right after their set ended. Great band, always love seeing these guys.
The Cocktail Preachers added some nice variety to the show, really dug these guys. I kinda want a fez now.
I feel really bad for missing most of the Bradipos IV's set, but I loved them at the pier. Really awesome bunch of guys, I'm so glad they came out because I may not have checked them out otherwise.
Then there were the polarizing Daikaiju. There's a reason I see every one of their shows I possibly can, and now everyone there understands why. After their performance I wondered how people felt about them, and was mostly met with "what the **** just happened?" You can argue all day about how to classify them, but there's surf in there somewhere. I was really looking forward to seeing them freak everybody out. I cannot understate how much I love these guys.
The Razorblades were one of my favorites of the weekend (if I had to pick favorites (I can't)). Caught them 3 times and each show was great. They had such great presence and showmanship, there's no way to not love them. I'm so glad that they made it out here for this, they were killer. They had best way to close out the weekend: a high energy, hard rockin version of Wipe Out in Huntington Beach. I don't even like Wipe Out!
Satan's Pilgrims were great as well. It was really great hearing some of my favorites live. I dunno how I got that nostalgic feeling for a song I've only known for 5 years or so, but Surf Lyre hit me just right. Almost brought a tear to my eye.
Mostly, I was really excited to meet and talk to some people I've only ever seen post on the internet. It was really cool meeting some of my favorite musicians in the scene, and I'm always blown away by how down to earth and nice everybody is.
I wanted to thank Jeff BTD for putting all this crap together, and for everything he does. Sometimes I feel like it doesn't get said enough, but for us in SoCal most of this wouldn't be happening at all if it weren't for him. Thanks to Brian for running this wonderful site that brings us all together. Thanks to the bands for coming out and making this weekend amazing. Thanks to every member of this random internet community who came out to show their support for this genre we all love. Thanks to Matt Quilter and Dusty Watson for donating equipment to make things go smoothly. Thanks everybody else I can't think of off the top of my head.
I'm looking forward to next year already, hope to see you there. Now I think I've had enough of a palette cleanser this week to finally get around to listening to that massive pile of albums I spent way too much money on.
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