I went to the first day of "The Bamboozle Left" two day music festival at California Polytechnic State College of Pomona. I actually got tickets for it because "Plus44" was in the lineup for that day, but unfortunately they had to cancel due to Travis Barker; their drummer, breaking his arm. Not only that, but the weather forcast predicted heavy rain for that day. I considered not going anymore from the disappointments, but it's only a little over a mile away from where I live (I used to attend the school), so I figured why not. Besides, there are other bands I wouldn't mind seeing, and I'm open to find new bands that I might like.
I went around 1PMish to get a feel of the festival area. The athletic field it's held on was big enough to hold four stages at it's corners with an additional stage off to the side area of the field. Most of the attendees are the usual high school / college student types. Lots of "Orange County type" females too, but that's common in a concert that's mostly emo bands, with a headlining acts that involves "Dashboard Confessional" and "Jacks Mannequin." I think I may have even seen some concert goers that I've seen at other concerts too. My friend and I also noticed that almost everyone; and I mean EVERYONE, were wearing denim jeans. My friend and I were practically the only people wearing khaki pants. Showing our age I guess. It also only drizzled for a couple of minutes at the beginning too, so it was great that the rest of the day was rain-less. Also, being that the venue is at a college campus, we noticed some people in the nearby dorms watching the concert through their balcony. We thought some of them were dangerously close from falling off their balcony.
For a lot of the bands, there weren't that many that we really really liked. Not everybody was bad, but only a few were really good in our opinion. We attempted to give a band at least three songs to win as over, or we would option to try out another band in another stage. For the most part, we didn't really follow that rule too well and left as early as the middle of the first song and opted to check somebody else out. Some of the bands had good instrumentals but crap vocals, or vice versa. The lack of originality in the emo sound doesn't help make a band stand out either.
It wasn't a complete waste of a trip though, because there were some bands that I enjoyed. The first one is "Ronnie Day," which I'm actually just giving a shout out because I enjoyed his show the last time he opened for "Meg & Dia." I only really heard half of a song at Bamboozle.
Another one we really liked happened on accident. At about 3:30 - 4PM, we were going around the stages as normal. We went through three stages and didn't find anybody really worth listening to. Going through the lineup, there's a band playing at 3:50 called "Easy Tiger." We thought it was a joke and didn't take it seriously, but we thought what the hell. What we found was a sound that was definitely not emo and actually closer to disco if anything else. I thought it was a little like "Ok Go" actually, so I was rather enjoying the band. It turned out that they are actually called "Men Women & Children" with "Easy Tiger" as an alias. Their performance consisted of colorful clothes, crowd participation, and some on stage dancing. They were simply awesome! A little later, me and my friend was even able to meet one of their guitarist; Jay, complimented the band's performance, and just conversed with him for a couple of minutes. I bought a t-shirt of the band, and he even threw in two water bottles in the change. Good guy.
Next up I liked was "Cobra Starship" who is most popular for making a song about the movie "Snakes On A Plane." The performance was pretty solid, the songs performed were great, and the female in the group is pretty... busty. A lot of people turned up for the band, with good reason.
The following band we caught was a metal act. Which in an emo field audience is very very very bizarre. They were freaking great though, and had what me and my friend thought was the best show of the whole day. "Van Stone" was their name and they are somewhat like a faux-metal band unlike "The Darkness." They have a whole entertaining stage presence that involes a whole back actors of extras like the "manager who is always on the phone," the hot photographer, and even a guy doing karate. The outfit was as leather and metal as can be, and the guitars are just a sight to behold (like the rifle lead guitar). Their songs consisted of titles like "We're Van Stone," "Palmdale USA," and "Two in the pink, one in the stink." Their act also had their lead singer jumping into the crowd and moshing with them, the drummer throwing drum sticks to the audience a ton of times, a lifesize penis that acts like a water gun, and some fake boobies on one of the guys. Yup, not an Emo band for sure, and their act must have scared off a lot of the attendees because they entertained a relatively small crowd for the second main stage. But damn was that a great show. I only regret not getting more than one song on video, but I think I would have been too distracted to concentrate on video taping.
Another band I liked was "Hellogoodbye," who I've heard about but never really listened to. I rather enjoyed their sound, and ended up buying their CD on site.
"Jack's Mannequin" is another act I enjoyed, but I already own his debut CD so I was already kind of a fan. He ended up starting late though, so he pushed the band set times back almost thirty minutes. After his performance, there was at least one more band I wanted to check out. But I was so tired that I was half hoping that I wouldn't like them and would leave early. Sure enough, I didn't like them too much and ended up leaving earlier than planned. I didn't stick around for "Dashboard Confessional" because I've seen them live before (at the KROQ Wienie Roast) and didn't really think they were for me. I also did not stick around for the "secret band" which was apparently the reunion show of "Something Corporate."
The Bamboozle Left music festival was pretty damn fun. If they hold it at Cal Poly Pomona again next year or somewhere relatively close in Southern California, I'm most likely going to be a repeat attendee.
* videos I took *
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
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