Even with weekend temperatures creeping up to the mid-90s, punks showed up and showed out at Punk Rock Bowling 2024 in their battle vests and mohawks. The Weekly made it to the festival on Saturday, May 25 and checked out several late-night club shows throughout the weekend. Here's the best of what we saw.
The festival always presents a difficult conundrum: With 9 club shows happening throughout Downtown on any given night, how does one choose? For Friday night (May 24), we eventually settled on the Swami and The Bed of Nails gig at The Usual Place with surf rock outfit Tijuana Panthers, punk pop band Toys That Kill, LA’s hardcore punk group Sweat and our very own suited punk boys Pure Sport—a good mix of old and new. We were particularly excited to hear the lo-fi surf sounds of Tijuana Panthers who made sure to amp up the crowd with their top tracks “Creature” and “Red Headed Girl.” –Gabriela Rodriguez
As the sun started going down on Saturday night (May 25), Madball took the Monster Street Party Stage at the festival to play to a swarm of moshers. The New York hardcore outfit played “Hold It Down” before Freddy Cricien belatedly introduced the band: “By the way, we are Madball.” He proclaimed, “We’re gonna take it to the streets of NYC,” before “Lockdown” and hearkening back to the band’s 1992 EP Droppin’ Many Suckers. At one point, Cricien brought his 8-year-old daughter on stage to show how the Madball family has grown since they started as a side project of Agnostic Front in 1988. Toward the end, the crowd responded to Cricien’s call-and-response: “When I say New York, you say hardcore.”
For a drastic change of pace, English folk rocker Billy Bragg took the Punk Rock Bowling main stage, starting with “The World Turned Upside Down,” “To Have and to Have Not” and “Sexuality.” He treated the audience with short anecdotes and impassioned speeches in between songs. Before he played “Which Side Are You On,” he made connections between many human rights movements including LGBTQ rights and the movement to boycott, divest from and impose sanctions on Israel to support the people of Palestine. “There’s no reason we shouldn’t be as relevant as we were back then, as radical as we were [and] as active as we were back then,” Bragg said.
He performed the Woody Guthrie-written “All You Fascists,” from the second volume of his Wilco collaboration Mermaid Avenue, following it with “Help Save the Youth of America” and “There is Power in a Union.” Before singing his 1983 classic “A New England,” Bragg said, “Woody Guthrie had written on his guitar ‘This machine kills fascists.’ If I could have [something] written on my guitar, it would be ‘Death to cynicism.’”
Back at the Monster Street Party Stage, Gorilla Biscuits opened their set with the trumpet flourish from “New Direction.” “Punk rockers, skinheads, hardcore kids, do we still believe the same things? Are we against racism, fascism, sexism?” lead singer Anthony Civarelli asked the audience before going into more songs from the late ‘80s. “Degradation,” “Start Today,” and “Big Mouth.” Reminiscing on the band’s history–also intertwined with Agnostic Front like Madball’s–Civarelli recalled “I remember tattooing Freddy Madball out of my apartment.” Ending with a cover of “Minor Threat'' had the audience begging for more. –Shannon Miller
At Backstage Bar and Billiards Saturday night (May 25), LA outfit Niis captivated the audience, kicking off with “Big Zoo.” “Can you keep the pit going for me when it gets slow?” frontwoman Mimi Doe asked moshers in the audience. They continued warming up the crowd with “Crazy” and “F*ck You Boy.” With no marked performance from the promised Slaughterhouse, Starcrawler took the stage with “If You’re Gonna Be Dumb, You Gotta Be Tough,” followed by “Shine On Me” and “Pet Sematary.” Lead singer Arrow de Wilde reached out to the audience during “She Said.” As the band sang the lyrics “Please please come back to me,” we felt as though she was singing to us. “Road Kill” rallied the crowd for a killer closer “Bet My Brains” where guitarist Henri Cash stood on the bar. –SM
Local Latin-psychedelia rock sweethearts Viaje Nahual were nothing short of electric during their opening set Sunday night (May 26) at the Chandelier Room. Like moths to a flame, the five piece act effortlessly entranced their audience to swing their bodies along to their tracks like,“Cuatro,” and “La Darks.” Spanish punk rock band Sgt. Papers consists of a pair of brothers from the Sonoran desert, and these guys came in with some of the most refreshing mix of fuzzy garage rock with a psychedelic twang that influenced a push pit toward the end of the show. Although met with some on-stage technical difficulties, the brothers professionally brushed over the hiccups and jumped back into jamming.
And whoever said punks can’t dance cumbia had to have been at Sonido Gallo Negro’s close-out set. The Mexico City-born, 9-piece instrumental group doused us with their psychedelic tropicalia grooves, fit with a swaying on-stage swagger that influenced all to join in and dance along to the elusive jam. –Gabriela Rodriguez
“Trap Girl comes with a black box label warning,” lead singer Drew Arriola-Sands warned Sunday night (May 26) at the Sand Dollar Downtown before going into “No Reason for Living.” The LA-based, patriarchy-smashing band also went into a cover of Caifanes’ “La Negra Tomasa” for a welcome Latin break. They ended an energetic set with “Break Up With Me,” from their 2023 album Diva’s Inferno, and an older 2018 favorite “Dead Men Don’t Rape.” San Francisco’s Neighborhood Brats kept the energy up with “FFBF,” “Comfort Woman,” “Dumpster Values,” “Harvey Weinstein (is a Symptom),” with plenty of jumping, acrobatics and splits coming from frontwoman Jenny Angelillo. San Antonio’s Fea followed with “Mujer Moderna” and “I Am A Cliché.” The headbanging on their bassist's part was admirable.
Headliners Bratmobile filled the Sand Dollar Downtown with more female, punk rock energy Sunday night. Lead singer Allison Wolfe walked on in a red sequin and fringe romper to “Love Thing.” “I’m in the Band,” “The Real Janelle,” and “Cheap Trick Record” followed with an emphasis on the lyrics “Just gimme back my sh*t!” “Cool Schmool” took us back to 1993, followed by the “Eating Toothpaste,” “Kiss & Ride” and “Gimme Brains.” Wolfe gave a shoutout to “OG” Molly Neuman on drums, Rose Melberg on guitar, Marty Key on bass and Audrey Marrs on keyboard before going into “Bitch Theme,” “‘90s Nomad,” “Brat Girl” and “Come Hither.” For the encore, they played “Girlfriends Don’t Keep,” “Supreme Nothing,” “Queenie” and the Runaways classic “Cherry Bomb.” –SM
At 12:55 a.m. the Padded Room at Notoriety was heavy with anticipation for one last rally before wrapping up Sunday night’s punk-tivities. N8NOFACE was poised to close the night, and those lucky enough to grab a ticket to this sold-out side gig knew they were in for a treat. The LA-based synth punk rocker wasted no time grabbing hold of his mic and his audience. N8’s body thrashed in and out of the beats and the punks gave back what was given by screaming along the lyrics to “No Today No Tomorrow,” Not Like You,” and “Already Hate Your Next BF.” Toward the end, the pit picked up speed and the inevitable stench of exhaustion engulfed the room as the night came to a close. –GR
