by Hannah Zeitner, staff reporter
Together PANGEA, White Reaper, and Surfbort played the venue “Baby’s All Right” located at 146 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY for the 17th stop on their North American tour for together PANGEA’s new EP “The Phage.”
Together PANGEA are a Santa Clarita based garage rock band, which consists of three members; William Keegan (lead singer and guitarist), Danny Bengston (bassist), and Erik Jimenez (drummer). The band was formed in 2008 under the name Pangea. They changed their name to “together PANGEA” after they signed to Harvest Records in 2013, because of a band name conflict.
Together PANGEA are currently signed to Burger Records and have three full length studio albums. “Jelly Jam” released in 2010 only on cassette, “Living Dummy” released in 2011, and “Badillac” released in 2014. They also have an EP “The Phage” released in October of 2015. Some of their notable singles include “Offer”, “Snakedog”, “Badillac”, and “Sick Sh*t.”
Surfbort are an underground band from Brooklyn, NY that came together in 2008. NYC’s Deli Magazine describes Surfbort as “desperate anarchists” as they rarely use the Internet and it seems they don’t yet have a studio album. They recently put out a single entitled “Trash” on their bandcamp account. The band consists of Dani Miller (vocalist), Charlotte Wimberley (guitarist), Matt Birdflu (guitarist), and Sean Powell (drums). They describe their genre as “SLIMY ICE-CREEEM LICKIN FILTH ROCK” in their Facebook bio, which is a hilariously accurate description.
White Reaper are a band that hails from the DIY scene of Louisville, KY. Formed in 2012, they have two studio albums; “White Reaper” and “White Reaper Does It Again” and are signed to Polyvinyl Records. They are labeled as garage punk, and noise pop. They have short and energetic songs with poppy hooks. White Reaper is Tony Esposito (guitarist), Ryan Hater (keyboardist), and twins Nick (drummer) and Sam Wilkerson (bassist).
Arriving at the venue, Baby’s All Right looked like any other building and at first glance one wouldn’t know that it was a concert venue. The buildings surrounding it were for the most part graffitied, some boarded up. Inside though, the venue is very nice, with good lighting, seating, and decorum in general. The security was very pleasant and let myself and my friend enter before the set door time (8:00pm.)
As the opener, Surfbort performed with such an extreme amount of intensity. Miller screamed out her songs and bounced, wiggled, and fell around the stage, captivating the whole crowd. At one point Miller laid down on stage and thrashed around with her microphone.
Surfbort’s music was in heavy overdrive mode and that made the crowd get hardcore. Most songs played were unintelligible, but the crowd still rocked out.The whole band heavily drinking, Miller took off her overshirt, showing her full grown out pit hair. They displayed the ultimate form of hardcore garage music.
As soon as White Reaper appeared on stage the crowd knew it was going to be interesting. Hater, playing keyboard busted out moves and put on a whole show just being himself. Both the guitarist and bassist played frantically and energetically. Leaning up against each other, and at multiple points the bassist Sam would step up onto the center amp in front of the stage. Their music was filled with driving bass, thrashing guitar, and the sound of a powerful kick drum. They ended their set by somehow breaking off pieces of the venues ceiling.
The crowd now thoroughly pumped for the headliner, together PANGEA to come out, were bursting with energy. As Jimenez and Keegan walked on stage to start set up, the crowd was already screaming.
As soon as all instruments were set, the band opened up with a fan favorite “Sick Sh*t,” creating an insane reaction from the crowd. It seemed the whole audience knew every word. They followed the opening song up with “Looked Into” off of their EP “The Phage.” During the set the crowd was very energetic, a little too energetic. During one song Miller from Surfbort crowd surfed.Later on they played other favorites such as “Badillac,” “River,” “Offer,”and “Too Drunk To C*m.” The setlist was picked by suggestions of fans, which worked out very well since every song that was played was enjoyed.
As their set ended, the whole crowd started the chant of “One more song! One more song!” Which Pangea obliged to, coming back on stage and ending their show with “Snakedog.”
All in all this show was very interesting and energetic. Acoustics were great, every band was awesome. The only downfall was that towards the end of together PANGEA’s set the crowd got very violent, mostly because many older guys were drinking, and in turn some people got injured.
“At one point I thought ‘do I have to stop this show?’ like these two guys were trying to fight each other. Erik was getting really pissed off about how rough the guys were getting” said singer of together PANGEA William Keegan in regards to the roughness of the crowd.
After the show Keegan briefly talked about when they were going to hit New York again; supposedly in about six months. Kelsey Reckling; Keegan’s girlfriend was also there, and was an insanely kind person who helped me get photos of the band and opportunities to talk to them. The bands and their affiliates are so nice and added a great vibe to the concert as a whole.
See gallery of shots here.
