Together Pangea, Sad Park, and Reckling brought out all the stops Thursday night at Cafe Du Nord for the 29th show of Pangea’s How to DYE tour. Reckling kicked things off as the crowd trickled into the Market Street bar, but it was Sad Park who really got the crowd up and moving. Based in Los Angeles, California, the boys are known for crafting alternative punk rock music that you can sway, headbang, and/or scream along to.

Aidan Memory of Sad Park

The group played everything from “You Said,” off their latest EP You Said / Chest Pains (2022), to crowd favorite“In My Head” (2018), which compelled one of the fans to climb onto stage and then jump back into the crowd for the first of many crowd surfing endeavors. It was not until Memory himself jumped into the crowd that I recognized him from my hometown: turns out we went to the same middle school and still have a couple of mutual friends. San Fernando Valley represent!

Next up was the band of the hour: Together Pangea. Also based in LA, this DIY garage-punk quartet formed back in 2008 and has certainly come a long way since gigging around the CalArts campus. Singer William Keegan and co. took the crowd by surprise, rolling their way onto the stage with brewskis in hand. They opened with “Marijuana,” just in the same way that DYE begins, and then used the first two lines of “Better Find Out” (2017)— “Calling all girls / Calling all boys”—to garner quite the surge forward.

 

Together Pangea: Patrick Nolan (left), Keegan (center), Erik Jimenez (right)

 

Danny Bengston and his Rickenbacker 4003

The crowd was especially lively during the chorus of “Nervous,” resonating with the introspective lyrics about feeling stuck and wanting to get high as a result (special thanks to COVID-19 for that one). To keep things light, bassist Danny Bengston employed thrashing riffs and jokingly introduced the band as AFI. Kelsey Reckling, leading lady from the opening band, then skipped right back onto the stage for a duet moment with Keegan. In all honesty, though, her neon orange eyeliner stole the show.

Maintaining composure after one too many young fans crashing the stage, Pangea finished with “Sick Shit” and then closed with a tripartite encore that genuinely blew my mind. After double-checking the following song titles with guitarist Patrick Nolan after the show, I now have it on good authority that TP performed “Dead Flowers” by the Rolling Stones, together with “Alive,” the lead single off their 2014 album Badillac, and “Gates of Heaven” (2021).

Prior to this experience, I was under the impression that getting one more song was expected—maybe two if you’re lucky. This Santa Clarita ensemble raised the bar to three, and chatting with Nolan out front definitely sealed my admiration for the band as a whole. With the help of Sad Park and Reckling, Together Pangea has reinstated my affinity for live punk.

Article by Nico Chodor

Photos by Lex Andersen

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