Although the rain and gloomy weather persisted outside, fans gathered on Sunday, Oct. 23 at Programme Skate and Sound in Fullerton to see Texas vegan and straight-edge band Die Young and others perform.
Due to the weather conditions, there was a low audience turnout, which caused the opening band Worthiest Sons to go on around 8:15 p.m. rather than the advertised 7 p.m. start time.
Although the small crowd didn’t seem really in the mood to mosh, the bands were the ones that really brought the energy and broke the sweat.
Worthiest Sons is a six-piece straight-edge band with members from Los Angeles and Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. The band helped to set the tone for the night, offering up sound that mixed socially conscience rap lyrics with traditional hardcore riffs and beats.
Although Worthiest Sons put on a very energetic performance, they had some technical issues with their PA and amps.
“It went well I guess, for a [expletive] Sunday. Being that it’s a skate shop,” Jaime De La Mora said, who’s Worthiest Sons’ vocalist.
De La Mora wished that they had a better sound check that night, though. The PA had cut in-and-out throughout their set.
The Rats in the Walls performance stood out amongst the other bands performing that night in multiple ways.
First off, they are led by female vocalist Eva Genie. Their sound was much more grounded into the realm of old-school hardcore bands like Bad Brains and Huntington Beach legends T.S.O.L.
They had riffs reminiscent of Jealous Again-era Black Flag with Genie’s energy and singing to compliment them.
The Rats in the Walls also rep a bit of punk credibility with their guitarist Brad Logan, who also plays guitar for the New York band Leftöver Crack and played in F-Minus, a band from Huntington Beach.
Logan announced during their performance that early next year they will be releasing a limited 7” record – the first to be ever be released by Programme Records, which is still in the works by Programme owners Chris Gronowski and Efrem Schulz.
Seattle’s Wake of Humanity played a much louder set than the two previous bands. It was so loud, that many of the audience members had to wear earplugs.
The drummer’s bass drum could be heard echoing across the street and off of the walls of the Bank of America.
Wake of Humanity played a set that was also more intense than what the opening bands presented.
Vocalist Chris LaPointe spoke about the nonprofit organization One Hundred For Haiti mid-set.
“I want to raise how important it is that people support projects and efforts like [One Hundred For Haiti] that really go towards making humans lives better in places,” LaPointe said. “Entitled people like us here in the United States, helping out people in Haiti that have suffered several natural disasters starting back in 2010.”
Die Young brought the crowd inside by playing the intro riff to Slayer’s “Angel of Death” – like a pied-piper beckoning rats.
Coming all the way from Houston, Texas, Die Young lead singer Daniel Albaugh and crew put on a vein-popping-from-your-forehead performance. Unfortunately, their set was cut a little short because the 11 p.m. curfew.
“What you learn is that playing in a hardcore band, especially in your 30’s, is that there’s really pretty much no point to it unless you love the music you play and seeing the world and being a foodie tourist,” Albaugh explained to the dwindling audience trying to beat the traffic and rain.
“We continue to play and we continue to write because it just comes out. It’s the only expression I think that I won’t get tired of and you just have to accept that at some point there are limitations to what you can achieve by playing this music and continuing to do it just because you love it,” Albaugh added just before the band went on to play their final song of the night.
Die Young and Wake of Humanity will be playing along the West Coast throughout the rest of October before heading to Las Vegas, Nevada.
