Orchid/Agriculture (2)/Habak @ The Glass House, 2/16/2025 (#11)
Stop yapping
Ah, the Glass House: a venue that doesn't feature much glass and is not a house. But who is interested in accuracy in 2025? So, the most-gymnasium-looking space award winner would have to do for Orchid's final show in North America. And who was there to witness the end? Kids. A lot of kids. I don't know what to make of the fact that there are more kids than not at all of the screamo reunion shows I've gone to recently. I mean, most of these albums are older than a significant pie slice of the supporters. It was like that for Jeromes Dream, too. Let me dig that write-up up.
I hate noting that this was one of the worst-smelling shows I've been to in a bit, rivaled only by the time I saw Earth on 4/20, and the venue reeked of dirt weed and vegan farts. Who were the stinky culprits? Kids. Heyo, Gen Z: take a shower. Also, I got pushed into a pretty tame pit during Knumears, which, I mean, I guess I was asking for it by being a gray-haired old person with glasses nowhere near the pit. (I dominated the weaklings, and now four smelly twenty-somethings are forced to carry me around like a Roman emperor.) Anyway. Jeromes Dream. Rules. The setlist was heavy on new material, including "Reminders to Parallel," its track on the Balladeers, Redefined compilation, but that's fine by me because The Gray In Between, Jeromes Dream's newest album, bangs. "Conversations In Time, On Mute" and "Stretched Invisible From London" sounded even heavier in the flesh, complete with those feedback amp howls. (I also feel like the band intended to jump-start a reappraisal for 2019's LP. The freshened-up version of "Keep Those Bristles Clean and Closed," now with classic Jeromes Dream screaming, was pretty fiery.) But the band made time for classics: "This Is For Baby Fat" smoked, as did "A Present for Those Who Are Present." One bummer: We only got the outro to "It's More Like a Message to You," and most of the normal-hour barflies were shouting over it. Alas.
The kids weren't stinky this time around for Orchid, but they sure did yap, yapping over everything possible, as if they were afraid of their own internal monologue. The chatterbugs have swept over the Los Angeles live music scene like a plague of locusts. I thought the prattle pandemic was terrible during more sedate shows that could easily be overpowered by bar talk. But, no, the blather has infected louder shows, too. People are straight-up screaming at each other with inconsequential small talk. I don't get it! And these are the same people who pretend to not hear you when you ask them to move. But let me put my gripes on ice because I'm sure I'll be complaining about this a lot more this year.
Tijuana's Habak is a crusty atmospheric core band with screamo undertones, those undertones being the post-rock school of quiet reveries/loud energy structures. Kids being kids, an unlikely circle pit broke out during one of the band's faster songs. I found the quartet to be good but generally unremarkable, a consequence of me spending the last 20 years in the screamo trenches. (Tragedy plus Envy plus City of Caterpillar is a tough sell for me, considering the amount of time I've spent with the original articles.) However, the band sure connected with the crowd, which is what really mattered. The members were also super gracious, acknowledging their excitement to be opening for Orchid. May the rest of 2025 bring each of us surprises as pleasant. Not holding out much hope, personally.
Agriculture was pretty pleasant, which was both good and bad. I think this was the wrong room and crowd for the ecstatic black metallers. The quartet never had a chance to generate the same vibe as when I caught it at the much more intimate Zebulon. I think the all-encompassing vulnerability that Agriculture exhibits is a tough sell for some crowds, particularly younger ones more geared toward the acerbic, politically-charged lyrics of Orchid. And thus, you had kids yelling over the quiet parts as if they needed to fill the void to eschew their own embarrassment over their latent vulnerability. See? There I go again. On the other hand, this is probably the first and last time I'm ever going to see an Agriculture circle pit, a small contingent of kids running like the bulls of Pamplona, so that was notable. And one of the deep bass drones the band kicked up like a microburst windstorm felt incredible, shaking the entirety of my skeleton from the ground up and then zooming over my head like a UFO. If the Glass House ever wants to book a noise show, I am there.
The Glass House, though, was not amenable to stage diving. As soon as a kid ran across the stage during Orchid's first song, security ran after them like the Coyote chasing the Roadrunner. Into the crowd the stage diver went, leaving the guard alone to get chastised by singer Jayson Green. "Get off the stage," Green yelled hoarsely, his voice suffering from a back-to-back tour schedule and the congestive mystery illness that has been making the rounds recently. Later, Green said that he'd foot the bill if any stage diver broke their necks. Probably not what the Glass House wanted to hear, and definitely an IANAL outburst, but that has been Orchid's for-the-people MO through and through.
Indeed, when given a chance to speak, Green was without filter. "I wrote these songs 20 years ago, and I can tell you that I am way more communist than I was back then," he said during an impromptu Q&A while bassist Geoff Garlock changed out a broken string. He also defended Brooklyn from a needling SoCal crowd: "No, New York is awesome."
Orchid? Still pretty awesome. Even with Green being more gassed than an old offensive lineman trying to walk a hyped greyhound, the singer sounded solid after getting a few reps in, really letting loose on "I Am Nietzche." The guitars still are like roaring jet engines, with Will Killingsworth, the mixer and producer of your favorite hardcore record, and Brad Wallace locking in for a six-string din. And the band played the hits — 25 of them to be exact, clearing the decks. Opener? "Le Desordre, C'est Moi." Closer? "...And the Cat Turned to Smoke." The only track skipped for time constraints was "Eye Gouger." And the crowd, as it was wont to do, went wild, moshing hard for these violent screamo miniatures. I won't say it was perfect — I don't think the large Glass House is a great venue for screamo, despite it looking like the world's largest VFW hall or Christian school lock-in — but it was as good as you could hope for in 2025, a year when everyone seems way more whatever, an exponential increase in me-ness, than what they once were. That includes the yapping, I guess.
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