While everyone else is reporting from that East Coast festival this week, we here at Decibel’s Los Angeles Bureau are lazy and don’t like to go further than 43.5 miles from our home base. Fortunately, on May 17, Scion held their annual Rockfest in Pomona, which is exactly that distance. Sweet! I was there, and I dutifully took a bunch of photos with my iPhone. Because nothing else really captures what it was like to really be there better than a crappy cell phone photo (I assume that’s why people are holding up their phones for the goddamn entirety of bands’ sets, right?).
Pretty sure this is Speedwolf. They kicked ass. I watched from the balcony as I perused the merch booths, only to discover that all the Midnight shirts in L and XL were completely gone by 3:50 PM.
I appreciated Pins of Light’s DIY mindset, but was not a big fan of their punky stoner rock (at least not in the poor acoustics of the Acerogami lounge).
Moab do the doom well, but their singer did not sound good live.
Orchid are up at the top of the post. Decent, but too much Black Sabbath ripping-off for my mood at the time.
The Well had one of three female bandmembers on the bill that day. Hooray for equal gender representation! They were pretty good, too.
My girlfriend arrived at this, her first metal show, just in time for Power Trip. Welcome to the deep end, honey!
The Jesus people were out on the streets in force, trying to convert us heathen metalheads. They weren’t terribly successful, but the choir they had going provided a nice palate cleanser between bands.
That’s Windhand somewhere back there, I promise.
This is All Them Witches. Great bluesy stoner band, good live, but they had NOBODY manning their merch table all damn day, which made it pretty difficult for me to buy a T-shirt and CD from them. Maybe next time?
Bl’ast. The 80s hardcore legends sounded good, but unfortunately that’s about the extent of the crowd they had.
Jex Thoth were phenomenal, even bought a T-shirt, but unfortunately their occult rock was making me a little too sleepy that late at night, so I went and watched High on Fire instead. Slightly more energetic band, them.
Fun fact: I had to take several pictures of High on Fire because the lights were gleaming too brightly off of Matt Pike’s chest.
Aqua Nebula Oscillator took a few minutes for all the feedback and psychedelic noises to coalesce into songs, but once they did I just grabbed a couch and blissed out.
Midnight. Didn’t have to watch them for too long to get the idea, but it was a pretty rad idea.
The initial plan had been to watch Coffins, but in the heat of the moment, I couldn’t pass up watching Machine Head, one of my all-time favorite live bands – and they didn’t disappoint. Fuck it all and no regrets.
