By Andrew Bansal
June 15th 2013, The Vex, Los Angeles CA: After the long and tiring vigil in the hot sun for Hirax, it was time to cruise to the Vex all the way in east LA to go out all-out punk with this promisingly great lineup of bands put together by Poor Kids Radio, featuring the likes of M.D.C. and Ill Repute as the main acts along with Verbal Abuse, In Defence, Dissension, Yapo, Destroy LA and Psycotic Scum. I’ve seen a few metal shows at the Vex now and this was my first full-on punk show at this venue. From what I’d heard, it seems like a better setting for punk bands and punk crowds rather than for straight-up metal shows, but I was about to find that out first hand as I went into this show with a completely open mind with regards to what these bands were about to offer, and how the venue handled things this time.
Even though I was there early enough, out of the eight bands in the lineup, I had to miss two of them Psycotic Scum and Yapo for various reasons, so unfortunately I’ve got nothing to say about them, but I did manage to catch the other ‘early bands’ Destroy LA and Dissension. Both of these bands decided to remove the monitors from the stage, so it was weird setting with them not even being able to hear much of themselves up on that stage, but despite that they didn’t do anything wrong performance-wise. Sadly there was hardly any crowd at the venue at this time of the evening to see these guys, and without crowd participation a punk show is not much fun.
The first band that really got at least some members of this very hard-to-please crowd going was In Defence from Minneapolis. They had a strong element of crossover thrash and even mentioned Exodus’ Toxic Waltz at some point during the set as something that influenced them. Their vocalist was absolutely filled to the brim with the energy and the attitude that typifies good crossover/punk frontmen, and his band mates backed it up with some solid music, specially the guitar riffs which instilled some circle pits as well as old-school head-banging amongst the crowd. Despite all this, a majority of the crowd was still preferring to stand at the back with arms crossed, only the most annoying concert behavior of all time, and very few people embraced the punk theme of the event. Regardless, In Defence were very impressive and based on that performance I knew it was going to be hard for the next band to match up to them.
San Francisco-based Verbal Abuse, veterans of the scene for more than 30 years, took the stage next. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was cool to finally get to see an old band like theirs, and it’s good to know that they are still out there playing shows of this kind, but I honestly wasn’t able to get into their set as much as I did for In Defence’s. The general crowd response was similar as well, with a relatively lower energy level. They faced technical issues on stage as well, which made it worse. Their die-hard fans were definitely having fun though, and although not my favorite, it wasn’t a bad set by any means.
After all six of those bands were done, the ‘business end’ of the show was now upon us with Ill Repute taking the stage and doing their best to tear it up for their fans. Their guitarist was complaining about the sound, or lack of, coming out of his guitar but they sorted it out pretty quickly and aside from the first couple of songs, their sound was good, and with their energy and performance they certainly brought their A-game to the Vex last night. Finally, there was some constant stage-diving action as more and more people got truly involved in the set although the cross-armed snobs were still at large. Security on stage had to be beefed up to control the extent of stage-diving, and at that time it felt more like a real punk show to me.
To bring an end to the event’s proceedings, the mighty M.D.C. from Portland, Oregon took the stage and raised the intensity of the place a few notches further. I honestly did not know any of their songs but enjoyed their set nonetheless, and it was entertaining to not only watch the band members on stage but the circle pits that kept going faster as the band’s music got faster. Their 30-plus year history was encapsulated very well in that set and got a fitting response from the tired but still enthusiastic crowd. What annoyed me though was the unnecessarily large number of people standing on stage behind the drummer. These were neither security staff nor photographers, just ‘VIPs’ of some kind, standing there to prove their self-proclaimed importance. So the view of the stage from a few rows back made for a strange and ugly scene. I had an all-access wrist band too, but never for one second stepped onto that stage. Quite simply put, the stage belongs solely to the artist, and I have no idea why people don’t agree with or understand that.
Anyhow, it was a good event by the Poor Kids, and I would definitely agree that even though the sound still wasn’t great by any stretch of the imagination, it suits punk better than it does metal. It’s nearly impossible to make that giant concrete room sound good without any semblance of echo, but the sound personnel did the best they could. There was no alcohol sold here last night, which made perfect sense, and the food and soft drink supplies lasted long enough unlike the last few shows. All in all, a largely successful event despite the generally lackluster crowd response. In Defence was my favorite band of the night, but every other band I got to see brought their best to this show.