Before the Monotonix chaos, before the psychedelic wave of Ty Segall, two bands opened the long night at the Echoplex on Thursday night, two bands that had a sort of 50-60s revival vibe, in a different kind of way.
The Tijuana Panthers were announced first, and whereas I curiously expected a masked Mexican rock band, three white guys with a Beach Boys look and surf guitars took the stage as if it was a fun giant wave.
The bouncing and surfing songs of the three Long Beach boys were truly reminiscent of 60s surf rock, with sunny vocal harmonies, but with a nervous and leaping beat and a desire to have fun, wild fun.
However, they played a requested song ‘Don’t give a damn’ which had a complete different sound, as it was a humorous country song just written to be sung after a lot of alcohol ingestion.
Chad Wachtel on guitar, Phil Shaheen on drums, and Daniel Michicoff on bass, produced a sort of punk-surf sound which had the tendency to put large smiles on people’s faces, since it’s as light as Watchel jumping on tip-toe while playing during the whole set.
They also covered ‘Everybody’s happy nowadays’ by the Buzzcocks,…Everybody’s happy? it was totally true, and I am not saying this ironically