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Fast and Frightening Takeover
Invades The Belasco
November 28, 2024 Review by Kevin Gomez
Punk grunge queens L7’s first ever festival, billed as Fast and Frightening Takeover, did indeed take over every room at the famed Belasco theatre in Los Angeles last Saturday night. There were bands throughout the evening on the main stage, The Chamber downstairs, The Sanctuary upstairs, and even the tiny bar, The Confessional.
So many famous friends and band members came out in full support of L7’s first festival. At one point I was standing next to longtime supporter, and Slaughterhouse lead singer, Meriel O’Connell, who is close friends with NIIS. During Surfbort’s set, I literally bumped into Linda Lindas bassist Eloise Wong in the mosh pit. Also spotted during L7’s set were Goldfinger’s Charlie Paulson and Bratmobile front-woman, Allison Wolfe.
Kicking off the evening on the main stage was the mariachi quartet, The Mexican Standoff. The band opened with “Pantalón Blue Jean” and “La Heat Wave” welcomed guest vocals from punk badass icon, Alice Bag.
They closed with an electrified cover of the Johnny Cash ballad “Ring of Fire,” putting their own unique spin on it.
Next up on the main stage was Los Angeles punk and hardcore band, NIIS (pronounced “Nice”). They wasted absolutely no time kicking into the heavy “Big Zoo” featuring guttural screeching by front-woman, Mimi Doe.
Her performance and intense vocals are just as captivating and fierce as the rest of the band’s playing. During “STK,” Monte Najera’s drumming was so wild he nearly knocked down his hi -hat.
“Bring You Down” brought out the evening’s first pit that would continue until the band finished. They played “Fuck You, Boy” about Doe’s experiences as a female lead singer in a chauvinistic industry, followed by the new single “Lovesick,” and closed with “Spite.”
I don’t know that there’s a better or more fascinating front-woman right now than Dani Miller of Surfbort. As soon as she took the stage she captured the audience’s attention launching into one of their latest songs, “USA Cheez.”
Wearing a black and white zebra-striped shirt with “fuck off” spray painted in red, Miller is such an intense performer, captivating on “Pretty Little Fucker.”
A mix of Wendy O. Williams meets Karen O, Miller led the band, strutting and screaming on songs like “Les Ben in Love” and “White Claw Enema Bong Hit.”
The band played a couple of unreleased tracks before Miller opined, “What’s the best part of going to a party? The hot chicks and the cold beer!” and the band kicked into “Hot Chix.” The band played another unreleased track, “Peaches” before going into my favorite track, “Lot Lizard ‘93” which got people dancing and singing along.
Miller then climbed into the pit and sat down while singing the slow intro to “Cheap Glue.” By the song’s conclusion, Miller got to her feet and began pogoing along with the mosh pit. The band closed with “Hippie Vomit Inhaler,” which Miller sang on the barricade, shoving her mic into fan’s faces giving them an opportunity to sing.
Red Kross adorned the stage looking like glam rock art, wearing matching white paint-splattered dress shirts. They opened with “Switchblade Sister” and I saw founding guitar member and future Bad Religion guitarist, Greg Hetson watching approvingly as his former band played.
Bassist Steve McDonald said, “This one’s for the new asshole in charge” and they played “Stunt Queen,” featuring a sick guitar solo from brother Jeff.
The band played songs off their recent release, “Redd Kross AKA The Redd Album,” including, “Emanuelle Insane” and “Candy Coloured Catastrophe.” Former Melvins drummer Dale Crover shined on the band’s cover of the Quick’s “Pretty Please Me” as well as “I’ll Take Your Word for It.” The alt punk band closed their fun set with “Born Innocent” and “Linda Blair.”
As the lights dimmed for the evening’s headliners, a spectacled man in a black suit took to the stage holding a piece of paper. He began folding it into a tiny square, before then making various cuts along the paper.
He then unfolded the paper slowly and showed to the audience an “L7” cutout he had made. As he left, “Rumble,” the instrumental by Link Wray, began playing over the speakers as L7 took the stage to a huge ovation.
They opened up with the monster hit “Andres” featuring guitarist Suzi Gardner on lead vocals. There was just something incredible about Gardner singing “down in North Hollywood” as we were in fact mere miles away from that location.
Lead vocalist and guitarist, Donita Sparks sounded sharp as ever on “Stadium West” with bassist Jennifer Finch taking up vocal duties on “Everglade.”
Sparks announced, “This song’s about a guy from Hollywood that lived in our friend’s garage” and played “Scrap,” featuring classic headbanging by Sparks and Finch. The crowd erupted when the band launched into their popular hit, “Pretend We’re Dead,” which they finished off with snippets from the song, “Beauty Process.”
They played “Stuck Here Again,” and Sparks announced she messed up and asked they restart the song, which they did and nailed perfectly the second time around.
FAST AND FRIGHTENING TAKEOVER
I was surprised to see them play “Off the Wagon,” and by far the gnarliest pits all night came from the appropriately titled, “Shove.” Sparks stated, “We wrote this song about Trump before he was president… the first time,” and played “Dispatch from Mar-a-Lago” as the final song from their set. They came back for an encore of “I Came Back to Bitch” and finally “Shitlist.”
After four decades, L7 proved they are far from done and their future is going to be loud and heavy.
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