Featuring Rebecca Coleman, a former member of Avi Buffalo, the Long Beach trio Pageants impressed me even before they took the stage to perform their engaging variety of beachy, garage-house indie rock Friday night in Echo Park. Friendly and outgoing, they flouted a goofy, endearing charm to keep things interactively entertaining for their audience while they went about setting up their equipment. With only a few brief sound checks, they mastered the uncertain acoustics of the tiny Origami Vinyl store, mixing their levels expertly and allowing both the vocals and instrumentals to traverse the narrow den with equal potency.
As the first moody strums of guitar began to tangle with frontwoman Coleman’s high melodious croon, I knew I was in for a good show. With a solid backing of bass grooves and the masterful mid-tempo percussive drives, Pageants weaved a solid rock sound that roused its audience’s spirits with bright refrains of pop-fun before lulling them back down into chilled interludes of intricately bound instrumentals and lingering, haunting croons.
Except for one song, which swapped out its percussion for moodily swimming synth pads, the music did not vary much in style—but each song retained its own unique rhythm and melody, and nothing felt too frequently recycled. I was struck most by their performance of “No Wonder” towards the end. As Coleman belted out the impassioned refrain (“It’s no wonder”) over and over, I was repeatedly swept up through an emotional apex, and after it ended, I felt like I could easily have listened to that a dozen more times. Indeed, most of their music from the evening was like that—pulling me in and leaving me all too soon.
All photos © Chris Witte and Pop Press International. Click any image to open in slideshow view.
