On Saturday, June 25, 2016 I ventured down to the 2nd Annual Refugee Recovery Conference at the Against The Stream Buddhist Meditation Society in Los Angeles, California to see Dead To Me play a free DIY show. Now I’ve seen Dead To Me live one other time before and that was either in 2012 or 2013 where they played a show with Heart Sounds and Hot Water Music at Slim’s in San Francisco. Last year I thought they would play a Los Angeles show after their performance at the Fat Wreck 25 Years Festival in San Francisco, but the band skipped Los Angeles to play Awesome Fest in San Diego. After that they didn’t play many shows. But alas, the punk gods took mercy on the City Of Angeles and granted us a Dead To Me show – not only that, but it was a free Dead To Me show put on in totally DIY fashion. There was no stage, no barricade, and no security -- none of that bullshit. It was just pure LA punk scene comradery. Against The Stream is not really a venue per se. Its main purpose is for addiction recovery, but the organization made their main room work for such an important show. Not only was it an important for Dead To Me fans, but it was important for the band to play this event because this was the place where Chicken got sober.
The opening band was hardcore 5-piece (or “krishnahcore†as they call themselves) The Deathless from Santa Cruz. I hadn’t heard of them until the show was announced, but they put on a good performance. They were not really super-fast hardcore, but instead they were just very heavy while the lead vocalist’s screams were fairly high-pitched, which made for a pretty interesting contrast. They were a solid band to get the crowd warmed up.
After The Deathless’s thirty minute set it was Dead To Me’s turn. This was when the room really started to fill up. I would guess that it was around 150 people that managed to squeeze into it. Dead To Me jumped into their set immediately with “Don't Lie†followed by “Visting Day,†which in turn made the room go absolutely insane. Most of the audience members were screaming the words at the tops of their lungs and even some crowd surfing occurred.
Other than the fact that it was such an intimate show a few things made this one particularly special. First, the line up was Jack, Ian, Chicken and Ken. Sam was not there for whatever reason. Seeing them with Jack back in band in 2016 compared to when I saw DTM without him 2012 or 2013 was a huge difference. You could tell that everyone in that room was overwhelmingly appreciative that he returned. They killed it song after song. Sure, Chicken’s bass got unplugged a few times, but that didn’t seem to phase him or the band. He just plugged it back in and kept singing, while giving off a piercing eye glare.
What was also very cool about this show was that the setlist only contained songs from Cuban Ballerina and the Little Brother EP. You can see the full set list below, but some of the high lights of their performance were “Special Professional,†“Ran That Scam,†“Splendid Isolation†and “Little Brother.†They left out anything that came out after Little Brother, but they did manage to play a couple brand new songs that sounded amazing. They sounded like classic Dead To Me tunes with the aggression taken up a notch. I don’t think we really need to worry about American Son of Cholo being anywhere near a flop if these songs reflect what is going to be on it.
Dead To Me ended the show probably the best way they could and that was by playing “By The Throat.†But Chicken did something really awesome to finish it all off as sort of a grand finale. During the build up he pushed those us in front out of the way and while wearing his bass, he took the mic stand and placed it in the middle of the crowd and had the audience surround him and help scream the final lyrics of the song into it. It was an absolutely beautiful sight to witness.
Dead To Me is back -- better, stronger and in full force!
Dead To Me’s Set List:
Don't Lie
Visiting Day
Cause Of My Anger
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Arrhythmic Palpitations
Special Professional
Ran That Scam
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LA
Tune It Out
Splendid Isolation
What’s Wrong
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Something New
Little Brother
By The Throat