On Sunday, April 10, 2016 I went to one of the best punk shows I have ever been to. I was scrolling through Instagram and saw a post from Leftöver Crack that they were playing a secret free show at a record store called Vinyl Solution in Huntington Beach, CA. There was no way in hell I was going to miss this, especially since I missed their secret La Puente show where Jesse Michaels performed some Operation Ivy songs with them. And seeing how I found out about it three hours before the show started, I knew I had more than enough time make the hour or so drive to Huntington Beach.

Vinyl Solution is a small-to-medium sized record store. It was clearly not meant to have live performances there, but the staff made it work. They cleared out the displays in the middle of the shop and that couple yards was basically “the stage.” The audience couldn’t have been more than forty people. Most them lined up between the counters in the front of the store and the other third were in the back of the store near the record shelves. It was hot, sweaty, stinky, overcrowded – it was a DIY punk show.

Up first was hardcore/crust punks Homesick Abortions. I had seen this band two other times both of which they also opened for Leftöver Crack and they always put on a great performance, but this time was different. For whatever reason the microphones had not been set up. For a band where all four members were also the vocalists you would think this would be a bad thing. If anything it made the show more special. Homesick Abortions started their set on time despite the lack of microphones. For the first few songs they just screamed their lyrics at the top of their lungs over their instruments and then finally one mic was brought in and they just made the best of that as well. If you haven’t seen Homesick Abortions before, one of the unique aspects about their shows is that for a solid majority of their songs the members take turns quickly screaming one line of the lyrics so you can see why the need for four mics was absolutely necessary for them. Seeing how they just had one each of them would swiftly lean into mic and then jolt their heads out of the way to make room for the next vocalist, while their drummer still had to make due without a mic at all. Even though there was a blatant lack of equipment for their set, Homesick Abortions persevered and put on a stellar show.

Homesick Abortions Setlist:

Dead By Dawn

Congested

Hugs & Drugs

Golden

Swarm

Without A Breath

Binary Code

Human Resources

Happily Never After

Obsolete

No Love No War

After about ten minutes of setting up and a failed attempt on the audience’s part of trying to get Ryan Clark (of Homesick Abortions) to crowd surf his way out the store, Leftöver Crack was ready to start what was about to be one of the best shows I have ever personally witnessed. And don’t worry; they managed to find more mics for their set.

Now there were plenty of aspects about this show that made it one of the top three I have ever been to. What made it absolutely legendary was what Sturgeon said during the front end of their set, which was that this record shop was one of the only California venues where Choking Victim had ever performed. Insane!

Of course what absolutely made this show legendary, too was Leftöver Crack’s performance. Though it was a shorter performance for them (there was a genuine concern on the store owner’s part that the cops could shut the show down) they managed to play a solid list of songs that spanned from Choking Victim tunes all the way to songs from their latest released Constructs Of The State. The only thing that was noticeably off was that Alec Baillie did not play this show, instead Mike from Brad Logan’s other band Rats In The Wall filled in and they still played an incredibly tight and fun show.

LOC started out with “Nazi White Trash” from Mediocre Generica and then jumped right into “Don’t Shoot” from Constructs Of The State. For the most part the band stood in their places because it was so crowded and the amount of space they were allotted to play in was tiny. Even Sturgeon was off to the left separated from the rest of the band next to one of the store counters, behind his keyboard. However during songs like “Corrupt Vision” Sturgeon would bring his mic over to Brad Logan to handle switch off between the vocals parts.

As the show went on the band did get more animated. Between songs Brad would jokingly take CD’s of artists such as Papa Roach and the Dropkick Murphy’s from shelves and display them on the drum set. He would also stand on top of his amp from time to time to really get he crowd amped up. Sturgeon took it a whole other level. He stood on top of other record displays while singing and then let the audience yell the words in to the mic. During their final song, “Rock The 40oz.,” he just got up on the store counters and walked back and forth on them almost like a catwalk to be able to get to the people all way at the front entrance of the store (the audience was basically a thick line of people).

There were two songs that LOC played that were definitely not something you would typically see them play though. They performed a fairly rare Choking Victim cover (which was originally a cover of a Cyndi Lauper song) called “Money Changes Everything.” It’s definitely not on No Gods/No Managers or on any of the 7-inches that band released, nonetheless it was a very unexpected and pleasant surprise. Leftöver Crack also played a new cover as well and I’m not talking about their amazing recent cover of Men At Work’s “Down Under.” What they played was a cover of Paul Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years,” which they retitled as “Still Crusty.” It was a slow and really dark version of the original. They didn’t add any ska to it, but trust me it was classic LOC.

Leftöver Crack Setlist:

Nazi White Trash

Don’t Shoot

500 Channels (Choking Victim cover)

Corrupt Vision

The Lie Of Luck

Money Changes Everything (Choking Victim cover of Cyndi Lauper)

Vicious Constructs

Infested (Choking Victim cover)

Still Crusty (Paul Simon cover originally titled “Still Crazy After All These Years”)

Rock The 40oz.

I’ve seen Leftöver Crack perform at festivals, open for acts like The Adicts and Anti-Flag, and headline shows and I can honestly say that this was hands down their best performance I have ever seen – and the same goes for Homesick Abortions. Both bands played unbelievable sets despite the technical obstacles and the small amount of space they had. On top of all that, what made this show great was that it was last minute and underground. It was a REAL punk show -- no dick security guards, no barricades, no fighting, no one got ripped off on ticket fees, no one was lectured or condescended to on how to behave. And from what I saw everyone pretty much did, unless you count passing around a bottle of brandy during the show as a “bad thing to do.” Everyone was there to have a good time and to get along. They were all there to for the same reasons. This was exactly what every DIY show should be like. It was human cooperation and camaraderie at its finest.

You can see pictures and videos of the show on the Punknews Instagram and you can see even better pictures of the show here.