I was bummed as I headed down to Santa Cruz. I’d really been forward to seeing a show at Brookdale Lodge, a supposedly haunted, cool funky venue. Unfortunately that funky venue had asbestos and the British Sea Power show was moved at the last minute to The Atrium at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz.
When we arrived, I was blown away by the large crowd out front of the venue. There were dozens of grotesquely tanned and crunchy rip-van-winkel-ish hippies, many were laying on the ground. They all looked like they’d been left to roast on the beach 20 years ago. The smell of pot and patchouli was thick. It made no sense. This was not the crowd I was expecting for British Sea Power.
It turns out that Dark Star Orchestra, a Grateful Dead tribute band, was playing the main hall. Everyone out front was there to see Dark Star.
It was hard to find the proper entrance, behind a set of closed unmarked steel doors. When we did find it the entrance was blocked by half a dozen large bouncer directing the Dark Star crowd. Once we made our way in, I was surprised to find only a handful of people, even though the openers, A Classic Education, were due on stage in just a few minutes.
I enjoyed the opener, and their jangly guitar pop. In fact, I enjoyed it enough that after their set I decided to head over to the merch booth and pick up their CD. Nobel from BSP was manning the booth and we had a lovely chat. We empathized about the venue change, and the nascent crowd that didn’t seem to grow. Nobel said the irony was that they’d actually sold more tickets for the Brookdale show than the SF show at The Independent the night before. Unfortunately it seemed that most of the ticketholders decided to punt on the show when the venue was changed. Either that, or there was a large group of confused hipsters hanging out in Brookdale getting exposed to asbestos and wondering why there was no band. This was a distinct possibility, as the promoter didn’t notify ticket holders of the venue change till the day before the show, and only via email.
I’ve got to admit, the beginning of the set was incredibly awkward. I’ve never been to such a poorly attended show in my 25 years of concert going. There were maybe three dozen people in the crowd, and that included the openers, A Classic Education. If that weren’t bad enough, there were technical difficulties with microphones and amps for the first two songs. As an audience, we were small, but devoted. Everyone in the crowd was really happy to be at the show, and there were three or four British ex-pats that were fervently dancing throughout the entire set. I think the band felt as bad for us as we did for them. A few songs into the set, Nobel brought out a large bottle of Gray Goose and toasted the crowd. He thanked us for showing up, and sincerely hoped that there wasn’t a confused group of concertgoers at the Brookdale Lodge. After taking a swig, he graciously passed the half-full bottle to the small crowd. Almost everyone in attendance took a communal swig and passed the bottle on. I think the bottle made it around the crowd twice before it was empty.
It’s got to be hard to give it your all when you’re playing for a few dozen people in a town far from home, but to my complete amazement, they did. Yan was clearly irritated by the sound and equipment problems and at first didn’t know what to make of the crowd. “We’ve never been to Santa Cruz before. This is clearly a “special” town with a lot of “special” people.” As he spoke, that toasted hippie crowd out front was flashing before my eyes. Really! We’re cool! We’re great! I was thinking. A few more songs into the set, we’d clearly won him over. Yan professed, “This is by far the smallest and most enthusiastic crowd we’ve had in the past 10 years.” We cheered and danced, and they played their hearts out as if we were a crowd of thousands.
Nobel usually crowdsurfs or plays in the crowd, and surprisingly this night was no exception. He had plenty of room to roam, and first wandered over by the merch table. He was literally and figuratively in a world of his own as he played, with only me and the click of my camera to disturb him. Eventually he made his way back to the sound booth and found a way to get up onto the lip of the booth. He and their sound guy had a great time playing back and forth before Nobel made his way back to the stage for the rest of the show.
I thought for sure that they would cut their set short, but to the band’s credit, they didn’t. I also thought there’s no way that they’ll come out and do a four-song encore as they’ve been doing for the rest of the tour. But they did. They played the f**k out of this small venue with passion and grace.
It was a special little show in a special little town that I won’t soon forget.
