Kevin Bronson on August 18th, 2014

0

There are elegant chandeliers above the stage in the Champagne Room at Taix restaurant, and during a few of the sets on the Buzz Bands LA Stage on Saturday at Echo Park Rising, you worried for their health.

Plenty of show-stealing transpired over the course of the afternoon and evening, and the highlights were many: Tapioca & the Flea finished off the night with the exuberant dance party that Monogem had started three hours earlier. The Dead Ships’ bluesy garage-rock was mad loud (the top photo gives you an idea), though maybe not as mad loud as the hook-happy Dreamland, who maybe weren’t as quite as unhinged as Washing Machines, who left the crowd in a spin cycle of distortion. Banta’s classic rock-inspired indie prevailed over the bedlam of the crowd from the Taix outdoor stage, and Howls delivered a sweet dose of early-evening sultry to fans who had followed the exploits of the duo, Annalee Fery and Christian Stone, in their previous bands. Wartime Recitals’ joyous indie-pop induced smiles all across the packed room. Sarah Negahdari, doing a sit-down set as Pisces with her Happy Hollows bandmates backing her, charmed the paintings right off the walls (seriously, one fell), including one Hollows song, while mentioning that a new HH album is on the way. And Cinderella Motel set the tone for the whole afternoon with an opening set of good ol’ in-your-face hard rock.