Mike Park, Dan P. and Streetlight Manifesto at HOB Hollywood, 24 Oct. 2013

Mike Park, Dan P. and Streetlight Manifesto

Thursday October 24th at The House of Blues, Hollywood

I wouldn’t normally schelp to the Hollywood for a show unless I had to and this time around I had to. My schedule dictated that I be elsewhere when the tour was closer to UCI…

I got to the show with plenty of time to find overpriced parking, pick up my tickets, get various colored tyvek bracelets attached to my wrists, get patted down, and get inside before anyone had taken the stage. I checked out the merch tables and said hi to Dan P., then moved to the floor in anticipation of the start of the show.

The House of Blues likes to bombard their patrons with advertisements before the show and in between sets.

Mike Park eventually took the stage and did a neat-o performance starting with a video he’d made accompanied by himself playing and singing on stage. For those of you who aren’t in the know, Mike Park is the brain behind DIY punk label Asian Man Records. He shared videos about the records he loved in high school and folks got excited when they saw the ones the recognized, i.e. The Specials, Devo, Minor Threat. He played some Skankin’ Pickle tracks like “I’m In Love With A Girl Named Spike” as well as some of his solo stuff. His performance was peppered with storytelling and was mighty entertaining.

After a too-long barrage of ads for HOB duds Dan P. (Dan Potthast) took the stage. Dan P. is an amazing performer. He can engage a crowd with just his guitar and his abundant, enthusiasm. More than once he moved the crowd into a mosh-pit frenzy. He did “Riot”, “Streetlights”, “I’ve Set Sail”, and “Melbourne” as well as others. As listeners of Barbara Bush’s Bathtime Breakdown will attest, I’ve been a fan of Dan for a while now and I’ve played his tracks quite a bit on my show. This was my first time seeing him in a formal performance setting and I was not disappointed.

Streetlight Manifesto have some amazingly rabid fans. I’m talkin’ groups of people drunkenly yell-singing “Point/Counterpoint” BEFORE THE SHOW HAD EVEN STARTED.

Streetlight came fast out of the gate and played tons of rockin’ tracks. We were treated to selections from Everything Goes Numb, Somewhere In The Between, The Hands That Thieve, and even some selections from the memebers side project Bandits of The Acoustic Revolution. The show was intense. There were so many people on the floor that a proper Southern California circle-pit never materialized. Instead there was just a nebulous area where people could move more freely than those scrunched at the edges. I left the show bruised, bloodied, and soaked with the sweat of hundreds of ska-punk lovin’ fools. And I do mean soaked. Toward the end of the show I remarked to another attendee that our fingers had gone pruny, as though we’d been in a bath too long.

A good time was had by all in attendance.