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Live at The Observatory Santa Ana
February 19, 2025 Review by Todd Markel
It was a chilly Saturday night in Orange County as music fans came together at The Observatory in Santa Ana for a fun night of post-hardcore nostalgia.
After ending a long hiatus, A Static Lullaby was making a long overdue return to Southern California and sharing the stage with fellow emo bands from the early 2000s.
It was hard for me to believe that it’s been more than 20 years since I first saw A Static Lullaby at Chain Reaction in Anaheim; it would definitely be a night of hard-core nostalgia for me, as well for everyone in attendance.
Those who arrived early, the evening began with a pleasant surprise – the last-minute addition to the lineup of the melodic-hardcore band Taken.
Fronted by the passionate and powerful vocals of Ray Harkins, the band wasted no time in setting the tone for the night as they kicked things off with “Regrets” featuring Harkins’ raw emotional screamo vocals along with the band’s melodic musical backing.
The crowd was instantly engaged by their raw energy and emotional intensity. They closed their set with the powerful “Eternity Was on Our Lips,” leaving the audience primed for more.
Next up was A Thorn for Every Heart, for who it’s been almost six years since the last time they all played together, making this a very special appearance for longtime fans.
They opened with “99 With an Anchor” as front-man Kelvin Cruz commanded the stage. A highlight of their set was “Object of No Desire,” which was well received by the audience. They closed with an extended version of “Things Aren’t So Beautiful Now,” and the audience roared in approval, singing along and reliving the memories of days gone by.
The only band tonight not originally from Southern California was Pennsylvania’s The Julian Theory, who brought an entirely different mood to the night’s festivities with their more poppy emo sound.
Opening with “To the Tune of 5,000 Screaming Children,” they drew the audience in with their melodic hooks and dynamic instrumentation.
Singer Brett Detar along with Joshua Fiedler on lead guitar had the crowd in the palm of his hand as they moved through their setlist, which included a newer song, “Can’t Go Home,” and “Duane Joseph.”
However, it was their closing performance of the classic 1999 hit “Constellation” that really set the crowd off.
Finally, the moment everyone had been waiting for. A Static Lullaby stormed the stage, instantly igniting the venue with their high-energy opener, “Nightmares Win 6-0.”
The band wasted no time diving into their signature mix of melodic and aggressive sound.
During “Lip Gloss and Let Down,” the room buzzed with intensity as bodies moved in a chaos of moshing and the occasional crowd surfer coming over the rail, the energy of the crowd matched the band’s relentless performance.
After expressing his love and admiration for the opening bands, singer Joe Brown introduced the powerful “Annexation of Puerto Rico,” a song that absolutely captures all the raw emotion and power that defined their early days.
As the night reached its climactic end, they closed with the anthemic “The Shooting Star That Destroyed Us,” as the audience sang back every line as stage divers jumped into the crowd. Everyone was exhilarated and smiling as they left on their way home.
This event showed how music has the ability to take us back to another time, if at least only for the evening. The shared nostalgia that night was obvious, as the fans screamed the lyrics back at the band with fists in the air and smiles on their faces.
On this cold Saturday night in Orange County, the fire of post-hardcore was reignited, proving that great music never really fades; it only waits for the right moment to make its return.
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