Ryan RitchieView more photos in the “Little Red Radio and On Blast @ Club Moscow” slideshow.
Only in Hollywood does an audience of 200+ people get so fired up over the prospect of taking pictures that for brief moments it forgets about the band on stage. It happened not once but twice Wednesday night at Club Moscow at Boardner's.
The first incident occurred during On Blast's set. The Long Beach quartet (full disclosure: guitarist Travis Raab lives in LA) opened with the acoustic-driven “Optimistic,” a song that doesn't require keyboardist/producer/bassist Tone Blair to do much other than look good. So like a hard-working band member, the free-handed Fedora wearer took out his camera and snapped shots of the crowd (which one can presume will be on Facebook any minute now). Hands waved in the air like they just didn't care, because for about thirty seconds, they didn't.
Hey!; Credit: Jay Oligny
The remainder of On Blast's set was decidedly less camera friendly, which worked out well for the tightly crammed group in front of the stage who came to dance, not pose. Singer Josh Brown used a few tricks of the frontman trade he picked up at the Goliath Festival in Mexico City by getting the ladies to shake their moneymakers during “Bad Girl,” a tune he dedicated to the females in attendance.
Lara “Hookie” Anderson; Credit: Jay Oligny
Unlike On Blast, LA indie/electro foursome Little Red Radio took no photos from the stage, but weren't shy with its demands to be the subject of a paparazzi-esque moment when the band busted into “Take My Picture,” a tune that is not only catchy, but easily the group's best track. Asking to have your picture taken can come off a bit, uh, cocky, but with singer Lara “Hookie” Anderson rocking a black-laced lingerie top and short shorts like a modern day Wendy O. Williams, you'd a been a fool not to snap a pic or three.
Lara “Hookie” Anderson; Credit: Jay Oligny
After a solid 40-minute set that found Anderson asking the crowd to go crazy like the bastard child of Ozzy Osbourne, Little Red Radio was caught in an on stage purgatory as the audience begged for one more song. The band was more than willing to reciprocate. The soundman, on the other hand, wasn't. The house music continued and the band was left to leave 'em wanting more, even if it didn't really want to.
Unfortunately, openers Apes of Wrath didn't get the memo about the evening's camera motif, but that didn't stop the San Diego trio from playing a downstrummed set that borrowed from Agent Orange, the Dead Milkmen and Devo.
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