By Jon Lee
Tuesday was the last night of the normal showcases before the winner of the Best Live and Acoustic sets followed by the Awards show. Hosted at the Slidebar in downtown Fullerton, the last five bands played to a packed house. The Slidebar is a restaurant, bar, and venue broken into 3 disparate parts: the bar is outdoors, there’s a quiet sit-down area in the front, and the showroom is in the back. If you’re wondering whether all areas receive the same service: no, you can’t hear the music outside of the showroom and the showroom has a more difficult time getting food and drinks ‘cause it’s that packed. But you can sit down in the tables in the showroom and get service, which is really cool.
The Slidebar was packed full of friends, family, and fans of the bands; locals of the Fullerton scene; and college students. There were also some people past their hayday trying to grasp onto their years of forgotten youth, and this night was the perfect place to do it.
Echo Echo started the night off in the only way possible: awesome. I know that was lame, but really, there’s no other way to describe them. I heard one attendee keep telling his buddy, “This band is really good!” His vocabulary was nearly as awesome as mine. Echo Echo is a progressive rock band with some psychedelic influence and some pop beats. Their incredibly polished sound makes me wonder why isn’t their music being played during Michael Bay movie credits.
Sederra jumped onto stage after Echo Echo. They even started their set with a crash cymbal lit on fire. With incredible energy, the Punk band unloads an assault of coordinated sound. With some hardcore influence, Tom growls into the mic and leaps into the crowd with untamed ferocity. At one point, he was even swinging from the stage lighting. Sederra definitely knows how to put on a show.
Fiction Reborn played next, and frankly, the band has the attitude and confidence of rockstars. With sheer crowd control written into their set, they would stop at what seems like the end of a song, get the crowd riled up, and then start on the same song with the crowd singing along. A punk band with some hardcore influences, Fiction Reborn’s lead singer has a fantastic husky voice. And husky is a good thing. For some odd reason, they reminded me of the Fruity Oaty Bar song from Firefly if it were sicked on by the reavers…
We Are the Arsenal came on after Fiction Reborn with Old CRT TVs as props. The Post-Punk band is somewhat reminiscent of Angels and Airwaves, and they even seem dorky but in a Weezer-appearance kind of way. They drum track for each song is not incredibly sparse, but in comparison to the rest of the night, it was more minimalistic. They played a new song: “brushfire,” which has an absolutely catchy melody.
And what better way to end the last night than with the eccentrically energetic Blok. Unlike the other bands, Blok isn’t a rock outfit. They’re an electro-hop band that sings on stage to their tracks. But they definitely carry themselves on stage with choreographed stage dancing and catchy beats. Just watching them on stage is entertaining enough, but you’ll find that the energy they produce is infectious.
And that was it! Off to the series finales and then the awards night.
The Best Live Acoustic finale is on 2/24 at the Fullerton Museum.
The Best Live Band finale is on 2/25 at the Galaxy in Santa Ana.
The Awards Night is on 3/5 at the Grove of Anaheim.
