What a weekend it’d been – three nights, three cities, three concerts. My oldest child had flown in from Minnesota for two of them and this one found me aimed toward Fresno, my friend, Aaron at the wheel. I’d been out of the office on fire assignments most of the summer, so Aaron and I spent the majority of the two-and-a-half-hour drive just catching up.
Both of us being passionate about our jobs, we spent a fair amount of time just bitchin’ and complaining about the state of things. Most of it just the inside baseball chatter of two dedicated individuals working in federal land management, some of it possible Hatch Act violations were it to be put in print.
We ease off Highway 99 and thread our way toward downtown Fresno. In all the years I’ve caught concerts in California catching one in Fresno is a first. Check that one off the list?
“What the fuck is this place?” I ask Aaron who’s done a little more research at this point.
“The Tower Theatre Lounge,” he says to me as I open my phone to dig deeper into the venue.
Capacity is 150 people standing in a 26’ by 35’ floor plan.
“Dude,” I say as I look up and over at Aaron. “This is going to be one of those shows that ten to fifteen years from now, you’re going to be at some arena or something telling the kids you saw them when they opened at a tiny ass venue in Fresno back in ‘26!”
And it’s actually a little bit better than I originally knew. The Rat Utopia Experiment is on their first ever national tour, supporting the Linda Lindas for select dates on their Gotta Get Out album release tour. This Fresno date happens to be one of the few where the band is headlining, crossing paths with Medford, Oregon based, Hate It Here.
Aaron and I walk into the venue and immediately I feel old – holy crap most of these kids are younger than the son I put on a plane back to Minnesota this morning. I walk over to the bar, order a whiskey and soda realizing (make it a double) I may be one of the few in the room with booze in his hand. Fuck it, I may be a grandpa but dammit I’m gonna be the cool grandpa.
These kids — and I don’t say that in any way dismissively, just a demonstrable fact; I’m not sure a single one of them is old enough to buy the whiskey in my hand, their frontwoman, Phia Lane, still just 18 — have been absolutely destroying it back in their hometown of Tacoma.
Nothing against Hate It Here but I’m chomping at the bit to see the Pacific Northwest’s favorite circus punk band so while they’re playing I make my way over to the merch table – I want a copy of the “Lobotomize Me” 7-inch and right now you can only get it at their shows. As I’m standing there, Phia, Francis and Maddox stop behind me, over my left shoulder.
“Hey…” the young man selling the merch whispers to me, eyes widening.
“The band … they’re right behind you!”
I lean in conspiratorially.
“I know!” I whisper back… “Let me get one of those tour posters and by the way… got a sharpie handy?!”
He fumbles through a few boxes but eventually produces a sharpie and I turn to the band …
“Hey guys, holy shit good to see you! My friend and I drove like two and a half hours to see you guys, any chance I could get you to sign this poster?”
They are beyond excited and in a world of cynical rock-stars, their energy is truly refreshing – they’re still just young adults out there having the time of their lives playing amazing music.
As three of the band is signing the poster, drummer Christian slides up on my right side and I quickly ask him to sign as well. Four of five – not sure where Drix is at the moment, but I missed him.
The band fades away and I make my way back to Aaron who’s enjoying Hate It Here, snapping photos of the band. Aaron is a perfect match as my regular concert buddy – one of these days I’m going to get him, Kerouac and myself all at one show, but that’s an evil genius scheme for another day.
Both of us are shooters with wildly different styles and we both look forward to the next few days where we’ll be able to look at each other’s images … asking how did you get that shot as well as just talking through it all, making each other better.
“I’m telling you,” I say to Aaron, Hate It Here has wrapped up and I feel comfortable to talk now. “These guys are absolutely going to blow up – they’ve got everything; incredible energy, tight performances wicked sharp lyrics and an energy that just feels like it’s been missing from this scene for too long.”
Aaron agrees, but I can tell he’s not all the way there yet. He didn’t listen to me when I recommended them back in June, and I don’t take it personally — it took me years to come around to a band my brother swore by. So I leave him to the fates. Some things you have to see for yourself. I’ve got a feeling it won’t take Aaron years, though. More like forty-five minutes.
Lost in the conversation I didn’t even notice the band had already taken to the stage until I hear Phia’s voice, “Give me a B!” and the band shouts it back in their call and response spelling out BLAST! Launching into their song of the same name, custom built as a show opener -- the audience is already locked in having played along with the band in their opener.
Phia is an absolute ball of energy as she bounces around the stage cooing how she took a man home, took him to her lair and bashed his brains out, flipping the script on both the caveman and serial killer motif, reclaiming the space for feminine power.
And from the start the band lays out their thesis – fuck patriarchy, fuck toxic masculinity, we’re going to take a hammer to it as we smash the glass ceiling along the way. And Fresno is one hundred percent here for it.
Behind me a mosh pit has erupted and I fight to get from one side of the stage to the other, camera in hand. God how I’ve missed this – raw, edgy, young energy exploding with a ferocity that if properly channeled would change the world. An unseen elbow connects with my ribs and for a second I’m back in the clubs of Oakland watching Green Day before Dookie, an unknown Rage Against the Machine destroying Lollapalooza. In an otherwise quiet and hot night in Fresno, Phia and the gang are recruiting an army.
Three or four songs in and a breathless Phia addresses the crowd. “I wanna talk to you all for just a minute … this next song, it went kind of viral and I’m guessing most of you know it but I wanna ask you, how many of you have heard about what happened at Cornell?”
The crowd screams in anger and recognition and I lose the last of Phia’s words, the din of audience and performers colliding as the band rips into “Lobotomize Me.” The line “You won’t believe me with receipts” hits like a freight train as yet one more example of a woman being sexually brutalized splashes across the nation’s headlines. We as a country are not ok. I’ve made this statement to K on so many occasions I’ve lost track. That said, the exact diagnosis escapes me as I see multiple sides to so many issues, my thoughts complicated by competing viewpoints. But Phia has words for it, and she screams them to the Fresno crowd, the rage electric as it flows from her body out to the crowd.
Youthful self-righteousness is both one of the most powerful and infuriating things in the world. Wrong is wrong, there is no in-between and should be dealt with immediately. As we grow things like doubt and extenuating circumstances creep into our brain buckets, we get bogged down by concerns for taking care of the family and our jobs. As I watch the band I offer up a silent prayer to whatever rock gods might hear me – “please don’t ever let these guys lose this, this passion, this energy, this absolutely on fucking point sense of right and wrong.” Amen coming in the form of a slam into the speaker as I turn around to shove the offending body back into the pit.
I need a break and pull out of the throng of bodies to the safety of the side of the stage. Aaron is ensconced by the emergency exit and we trade a few notes about how things are going. A young lady with a vintage camera snakes past us and I watch as she maneuvers to the front of the stage. That’s where I need to be, I think to myself as I think through working my way out of this conversation with Aaron. Thankfully for me, Aaron and I are on the same wavelength and I just point to the front of the stage, punch my chest and Aaron shakes his head in understanding.
The band is getting toward the end, you can feel it like a crescendo as well as see it as sweat drips from their faces. Phia’s hair is completely matted as she led the charge on this band’s sonic assault. Finally at the front of the stage, I drop down, the young lady with the vintage camera to my side. I look behind me and the pit is about to crash into us, I throw my arm up blocking the impact to the young lady who’s lost in capturing her decisive moment. I raise my camera, Phia has fallen to the ground, writhing as she sings, she sits up, laughs and falls back to the stage the song coming to a close.
“We’re the Rat Utopia Experiment, thank you so much for coming out to see us tonight! We’ll be over by the merch table here in just a few please come buy a record or a t-shirt and support all of us out here on this tour!”
And just like that the lid is placed on the bottle of lightning as the lights come up and the crowd is visibly exhausted, wrung out but vibrating from the experience.
Aaron is a hard read as we make our way back to the car. I never want to find myself on the other side of the table playing poker against him.
“So …” I begin a slight bit of trepidation in my voice. “What did you think?!”
“Dude … that was amazing, Holy shit that was amazing!”
Postscript – The Rat Utopia Experiment have a slew of shows across the country through the end of the month. Without question you should go to their website and if they are anywhere near you, go see them!
I shot a whole bunch of images from the show, you should check them out!
