The Best, Worst and Weirdest Stuff We Saw at Berserktown Day One

Photos by Josue Rivas

Berserktown II isn’t just the best-named music festival in Southern California, it’s also arguably the weirdest. Over three days in Santa Ana it plays host to over 100 underground noise, grind, and hardcore acts. That includes dozens of bands you’d probably otherwise see in a house show, but also bigger names like Australian post-punks Total Control and noise-rock gods Royal Trux, who’re closing the fest out with a much-anticipated reunion set on Sunday.

The festival started last year as a grimy throwdown at club Los Globos in Los Angeles, where bands like Hoax and Dawn of Humans did crazy shit like spill blood and tape foreign objects around their private parts. For this year’s edition—happening Friday, August 14 through Sunday, August 16—the fest relocated to a new venue at the Observatory just south of L.A. in Orange County; there’s a bit more room to stretch out with three stages, a vendor area and food trucks. The expanded lineup—which includes a dance tent—is more “eclectic” as well, if that’s really the right word to use. But the whole thing is still gnar enough to have attracted a lot of hype up and down the coast in recent months. Eager to get a taste of what seems like an unprecedented underground event, a crack team of Noisey journalists have joined the hordes trekking south from L.A. to investigate the scene.

Below you will see some of our findings for day one of Berserktown II.

Berserktown got Disneyfied

Last year, Berserktown was almost exclusively hardcore and DIY, topped with local bands and half-naked primates like Dawn of Humans. Most of the acts on the first night of this year's fest were equally as menacing and dark – the antithesis of the orange groves and Disneyfied communities around the OC, the new home of L.A.'s hardest festival. With all melody-averse noise subduing the crowds for most of the night, two Bay Area rockers ripped their way through powered-up sets that included Disneyland parade footage, sun-soaked guitar solos, shaggy hair, and the rock 'n' roll equivalent of a fart joke at a funeral. The first set was by Tony Molina, who soloed on his bright blue guitar during catchy rock that turned the 2nd Stage into a power-pop room, or something you'd see at Burgerama. The most Disney-esque record label around, Burger Records, also had their own '90s-themed merch table at Berserktown, hawking shit like an old-school pair of Skechers and Gulf War memorabilia.

Like chasing a burger with a Coke, Molina's set was a refreshing palate cleanser following Destruction Unit's crushing wall of guitars. The second powered-up set was by the night's closer, Thee Oh Sees (which would have ticked-off the hardcore kids had they been booked at last year's fest). Thee Oh Sees played their entire set over footage from classic Disney parades and cartoons. The colorful and child-like Disney Channel footage gave the head-shaking John Dwyer (who looked like an amped Beatle) the perfect accompaniment to his energized blast of scorching guitars. With two drummers and each member of the band dressed like they'd just left the beach, with Dwyer swinging his axe around like a toy gun, seeing Thee Oh Sees after a night of intense shit felt nothing short of liberating – like taking a whiff of laughing gas, seeing the Ramones for the first time, or riding Space Mountain after the Haunted Mansion. - Art Tavana

Black dollars at the merch booth

People always love to buy stuff at shows, and some big fests like Warped Tour take this to an extreme level, offering endless varieties of merch. But the vendor stands at Berserktown weren’t quite as extreme, and Jesse Spears’ “Black Dollars” seemed like the most subversive souvenirs of all. They’re literally dollar bills, rendered useless by the fact that they’re painted or dipped in thick black ink. Spears was hawking them—for a dollar apiece—all night at the Observatory, alongside ’zines and other items she makes under the name Fuckers Books. I bought a “dipped” one, with a little bit of the actual dollar left unpainted, and promptly placed this specimen in my wallet as a reminder that the concept of money will always be a burden on our souls. - Peter Holslin

Big-ass Baklava

Over at a food table in the back some guys from a Greek restaurant were cooking up gyros for the hungry concertgoers. But the real goodies were the huge pieces of homemade baklava offered up by one of the Greek cooks. The pastries were fresh, crispy, syrupy, and did I mention fucking huge? Needless to say, shit was bomb. - PH

Nate Young

Nate Young is best known for playing in the brutal and prolific Detroit noise band Wolf Eyes, but atop the Main Stage he was doing something else entirely—a solo project dubbed Nate Young’s Regression Nightmare. That might sound spooky but in fact it was super duper chill. Dude was up on stage looking cooler than school in orange-and-purple shades and an 80s tee and blazer combo. Standing at a table covered in electronics, he let out bizarre howls, sighs and feedback, blowing into a harmonica run through delay and other effects. Soft green light glowed behind him and the audience was massaged into submission; some were kicking back on the dirty floor, while others just stood there, dumbfounded by the slow synth pulses that gently swayed in a loop to his experimentations. It was hypnotic and beautifully weird, like a bad trip gone good. - PH

Destruction Unit

Destruction Unit & Friends

Destruction Unit hit their packed 10 PM Main Stage set like a hurricane. A very stylish hurricane! The Phoenix outfit is famed for its explosive live gigs requiring the use of multiple guitars, and this time they joined forces with friends to create a formidable combo featuring a drummer, a percussionist, a sax player, a bassist, and five guitarists. Together, they writhed around onstage for nearly 40 minutes, ripping between intricate hardcore riffs and slower doom-y sections, showing some seriously cool onstage moves while serving up a blessed and unholy electric noise. The waves of sound came heavy and thick and engulfed your whole body, and it all reached a fever pitch until the guitarists weren’t even playing their instruments anymore—just toying with their massive collection of amps, like electric lovers post coitus. - PH

Diät

There are tons of bands that owe a clear debt to 70s and 80s post-punk, and while Berlin’s Diät really pull off that sound on record, sadly it just doesn’t translate as well on stage. The language of forebears like Christian Death and Wire once sounded threatening and new, but with Diät—playing on the Main Stage around 8:15 PM—everything just seemed so… proper. Their riffs were chunky and dry, their vocals deep and gruff. They pushed forward with jet propulsion. But shit ain’t punk if you’re just following age-old formulas. You gotta tear it down and building something new. - PH

Sissy Spacek Doesn't Dance

Dance tents at festivals like FYF and Glastonbury create hideaways for those desiring freedom through deep bass and 128 beats-per-minute. At Berserktown, the idea of a "dance tent" was demolecularized during a nonstop 17-minute barrage of noise by LA's Sissy Spacek, where bandleader John Wiese turned his two-stringed Rickenbacker bass into a distorted industrial tool. Engulfed in blinking white lights and manufactured fog, the raver kids who showed up—along with punks too mesmerized to properly slamdance—looked either possessed by the noise or terrified by Sissy Spacek. The band pulverized their instruments under the fire-breathing growls of current singer Mike Du Bose. When it was over, the crowd looked like they'd just been fucked sideways into some alternate reality where people fist-pumping to grindcore. - AT

Back to Back

Total Control's Daniel Stewart is the world's coolest football hooligan

Dressed in an Adidas track jacket, with his sleeve rolled up to expose his forearm tattoo, Total Control's Dan Stewart looked like a character from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Clenching the microphone and swaying back and forth, his eyes nearly closed, Stewart would unleash his punkest growls as he commanded control of his band like a proper gang leader. A rare LA-area appearance for Total Control, the Melbourne act drew the largest crowds of the night to see their unique blend of '70s-sounding punk meets brooding post-punk, which sounded especially aggressive on night one, where Stewart used a portable synthesizer to juxtapose his relentless onstage intensity with some tuneful synths. "Santa Ana, what a lovely town," said Stewart in his thick Australian drawl. "You got an hour-long walk in any direction for a cigarette." The vague comment was a fitting juxtaposition with the projection footage of a blind date reality featuring a couple having sex in a cab. It felt like a joke on the audience, a la the Gallagher brothers, giving no fucks in the process of playing a sweaty set that included songs like "One More Night," where Stewart proved to be the toughest and coolest looking bloke at the fest. Hours later, he was smoking a cigarette and bobbing his head during Ninos Du Brasil in the dance tent. It turns out he found his cigarette. - AT

Un-berserktown?

The strangest part about Berserktown on Friday was the fact that, well, it really seemed to be lacking in berserkness. Don’t get me wrong, there were some very amazing berserk moments last night—like when Houston punks Back to Back brutalized the crowd with a guitar so screechy that it was literally deafening. Their raucous set really got people going; at one point I saw someone front-flip off the edge of the stage right into the pit. Overall, however, the vibe at the fest was pretty chill. The venue was big, the security and staff accommodating. The turnout wasn’t exactly massive, so there was lots of room to stretch out when your feet got tired. Normally that’s a good thing, but considering Berserktown’s punk roots, it could’ve done with a little more unpredictability or DIY grit—or at least one gutter punk rocking liberty spikes. Then again, that was just day one. There’s still plenty of time to crank the berserk dial up to 11… - PH

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