MONDAY, JULY 2:
As if the recent Los Angeles weather hasn’t been doing a good job for
us, leave it to a narrow stone-walled, heat-insulated gallery to do
remind us all what Tijuana feels like. Fucked Up began their set
around 11:30 with a haphazard and somewhat inaudible shout out to Tim
Hawkins and the Arcade Fire. A visibly overheated and shirtless lead
vocalist Damian yelled something about no fighting—if you fight, you
leave—and then like clockwork came a swift bum-rush of other sweaty,
shirtless dudes dumping some big unconscious guy on the couch.
Everyone sitting on the couch screamed—they had no warning. Fat
perspiring passed-out guy on your bare legs? Cannot be a good thing.
After spitting close to an entire bottle of beer on about a hundred
equally sweaty, pogo-ing kids in black, Damian confessed that his
tight physique was built more for swimming and long distance running.
Maybe he was comparing in terms of endurance, as if to say, “I was
built more for yada yada rather than performing in this warehouse and
almost dying from heat exhaustion.” That was the last lucid thing I
could make out—later, I was too busy fighting off the roaring in my
ears and these colors I was hallucinating. Boys and girls: heat kills.
(JG)