Show: Surfer Blood
Date: October 21, 2013
Venue: El Rey Theatre
City: Los Angeles, CA
Surfer Blood
Photos by Nicolas Bates
Written by Dan Sinclair
As expected with such a late set time on such a shitty day (10:50 p.m. on a Monday), the crowd was sparse for the band from Florida’s set. And even those few hundred in attendance lacked the right energy a good live concert deserves. But it didn’t seem to matter too much to Surfer Blood. They came out to rock all the same.
Singer and lead guitar man John Paul Pitts stands front and center with Tyler Schwarz sitting behind him on the drums. Bassist Kevin Williams stands to his right and Thomas Fekete is on his left, armed with a guitar. They start the night off with the fun instrumental “Neighbor Riffs” off 2010’s Astro Riffs. The sound, as is usual at the historic El Rey Theatre, is top notch and Pitts makes sure to step up and show the crowd every single scale he plays on his Fender.
He then thanks everyone for coming out and reminds them all that he and his band mates are, in fact, Surfer Blood. Next up on the set list is “Twin Peaks,” which also came off their debut album. During this distortion-heavy track, Williams decides to get up on the drum set to hang out a little with his brother-in-rhythm Schwarz while still keeping the catchy bass line going strong.
The first song off the newest album Pythons is the poppy “Squeezing Blood,” and this is where I notice there is at least one fan who is really into the event that’s happening here on the Miracle Mile tonight, and she is a young lady with short hair and glasses who I will call Happy Short Hair. She sings along loudly to every song while dancing alone from one side of the dance floor to the other. She is by far the greatest Surfer Blood fan in all of California and will hopefully shame the others into forced fandom.
Surfer Blood’s Pixies and Smoking Popes influences continue to shine through in “Weird Shapes,” which is the first song to feature a little bit of Pitts screaming, “Shaking down! Breaking Ground!” The screaming may have woken the tired crowd. They start to move around to “Floating Vibes,” which features some great distortion-heavy guitar solos. And by the time the faster-paced lead in to “Miranda” comes in, I realize that the fans have all migrated to the dance floor, leaving the writer alone by the sound booth (Good, I don’t need them anyway).
The newly found energy continues into “Voyager Reprise.” Pitts then puts his guitar down and jumps down into the crowd to sing “Take It Easy.” Some dude offers the fan-friendly frontman a drink and Pitts happily chugs it much to the crowd’s delight. He returns to stage to pick up his guitar to finish the song, followed by the slower “Slow Six” and the poppy, fun “Say Yes to Me.”
And though thus far the crowd has not been able to match Happy Short Hair’s enthusiasm, as she hasn’t stopped dancing since she got here, they give it their best attempt when Surfer Blood plays “Demon Dance.” The place starts to look like an actual concert for a few seconds. And this continues into the best performance and loudest song of the night, “Swim.” The writer would like to thank Surfer Blood for playing their most familiar song because it had been in his head for about a week leading up to tonight and if he hadn’t heard it live, he surely would have gone insane and most likely turned to a life of crime.
Pitts thanks everyone again for coming out and then Surfer Blood closes out the set with the captivating “Drinking Problem” off their 2011 EP Tarot Classics. Though Pitts did inform the crowd that this would be the last song of the night, there are some that don’t believe him. As Surfer Blood leaves the stage, half of the crowd heads for the door while the dedicated, loyal Bleeders stick around calling for an encore.
Sadly, it never comes as it’s far past the El Rey’s bedtime. The curtains fall over the dark, empty stage. If that wasn’t a big enough hint, the song “Hit the Road, Jack” starts blaring out from the speakers, sending the lingering concertgoers toward the exit. Surfer Blood impressively bled their best this late Monday evening in October, but unfortunately few people in Los Angeles were on hand to witness. This writer, for one, was glad to be among them.