By Andrew Bansal
January 30th 2015, Billy O’s, Ventura CA: Having played host to countless shows featuring punk rock and metal bands for the past few decades, including groups representing the region’s world-famous Nardcore movement, Ventura-based live music venue/pizza joint/dive bar Billy O’s is closing and relocating to a new address in early March. As a celebration of everything it stood for over the years, a final weekend of free shows was announced, and the first of them, headlined by Nardcore innovators Ill Repute, took place last night. Being a small part of the Night Demon juggernaut for the past few months, I started feeling myself getting associated with the Ventura/Oxnard music scene to a certain extent, and upon returning from the most recent US tour with the band, I decided to stay in Ventura an extra few days specifically to get a taste of the local community. Little did I anticipate what I and fellow attendees were in store for, as the evening turned out to be a complete contrast to what was expected.
With as many as eleven bands on the bill, the show got underway at 5:45 PM, and when I arrived at the venue at 8:40, it was already packed and Wooden Nomad were in the middle of their set. It must be mentioned that no one was at the front door to mark us or give us wristbands, for a show with no cover and at a venue with a clearly limited capacity. After an enjoyable set by Wooden Nomad, the next band La Vasa livened up the crowd and got some mosh pits going. Folks were having a great time, and it only got better when Los Creepers took the stage shortly after. The pits were fast, intense and high-energy but were really good-natured. Everyone seemed to be in attendance for the right reasons and no one was getting hurt. But for reasons completely inexplicable, the venue’s head of security took the microphone half-way through Los Creepers’ set and announced that no more mosh pits were to be tolerated and anyone seen pitting would not only be ejected from the building but also arrested. This unprecedented announcement instantly killed the vibe of the show and the band on stage was understandably the most disappointed group of people in attendance. I’ve honestly never been to a punk show where pitting was banned, and instead of enforcing this sacrilege, the authorities might as well have shut the show down altogether.
But things came to a head when attendees that turned up early and had been inside for several hours were not allowed re-entry after stepping out momentarily for a smoke or any other similar minor reasons. Some of them had an X mark on their hands which weren’t at all acknowledged by the security at the doors which was now beefed up threefold, and as mentioned earlier, most people, including us, weren’t even marked upon first entry. Had we known that we weren’t going to be allowed back in, we wouldn’t have stepped out in the first place, and only reason we did so was for my friend to grab her credit card from her car, to spend more money at the bar. But this venue had already decided that they did would rather lose money and refuse entry to their own longtime supporters, simply so they could take it easy and not have to deal with a packed house.
As you can probably see where this is going, we departed the scene after more than 30 minutes of waiting around at the door, and didn’t get to see Stop Breathing, Ill Repute, False Confession and L.A.M.F. Most others did the same thing and decided to take their party to other local spots like The Garage. And as karma would have it, I was told by an attendee who finally got in an hour later that the venue’s acoustic ceiling tiles started raining down towards the end of the night.
The Billy O’s staff completely sabotaged and ruined what would have otherwise been a legendary event. If I were you I wouldn’t waste my time and effort attending the final show there tonight, and would rather spend my Saturday night elsewhere. I’ve been to a lot of shows, so this comes as no small statement, but there’s no better way to summarize this than to say that it was the worst concert experience of my life.