a lot of crazy stories about the California 4 piece and how reckless and quite honestly dangerous their shows could be. A lot of my friends who knew of Trash Talk actually wished me luck. As a 19 year old girl with very little muscle, I live by the moto 'if you don't want to be hit, stay out the pit,' a moto which is hard to live by when the whole room Trash Talk play in becomes a mosh pit. Trash Talk are a truly unique band. They play 50 second bursts of hardcore punk, encourage skateboarding at gigs and they perform among the crowd. The venue I saw them in has a stage, but a stage means nothing to Lee, Garrett or Spencer. It is drummer Devan Bentley who fills the stage alongside some massive amps and speaker, the others play on the floor. Whilst this means the show is as much the crowd's as it is the band's, it is slightly annoying. Like I said, I'm a 19 year old girl who doesn't want to get hit at a gig and whilst I'm more than happy for the mosh pit to still exist, in a situation like this it meant that I couldn't see. I would have love to have seen frontman Lee Spielman's passion and chaos but I couldn't because he was constantly mobbed by testosterone filled young boys.
Anyway, I feel I have become a tad sidetracked so let's get back to the best bits of my Sunday night. Opening act Human Future opened the night by thanking the crowd for being at The Forum and not watching the highly anticipated and loved World Cup final. This was followed by a declaration of "F**k Lionel Messi" something which created a ripple of laughter through the crowd. Following Human Future were Palm Reader (my current Band of the Week). Palm Reader managed to hype up the crowd ready for Trash Talk more than I was expecting them to, they were awesome, but you can read about all that in my post about them. Their bassist said something in passing though which made me laugh: "21 and deaf as a c**t" which was an accurate description of most the people in the room that night, including himself. The crowd now nicely riled (and a bit deaf), it was time for Trash Talk.
Trash Talk's 35 minute set was everything I thought it would be and more. It was absolutely crazy. Kids were throwing themselves into each other, into the band, into walls. Lee was throwing himself about, he was throwing fans about, he was encouraging circle pits and complete mayhem. What I wasn't expecting was for the band to stop mid-set and get each and every one of us to sit on the floor to watch a man propose to his girlfriend who he had met in the venue 2 years previous. It was a surreal thing to be happening at a gig, especially a Trash Talk gig but it only riled the crowd more. "Come on! Two people have jut declared their f***ing love for each other man!" shouted Lee and the show went on with more energy and more mayhem. Other random things which would only happen at a gig like Trash Talk's was a song being dedicated to Biffy Clyro, a song in which the crowd were asked to do skateboard tricks throughout, a song which required the crowd to stand still and frantically fist pump and Lee almost "taking a slash somewhere [he] shouldn't." The venue being as small as it is got pretty hot which lead to the band demanding beer and opening the side doors to hang out of whilst performing. Lee also threw some kids out the door too, just for fun... It was crazy. I wish I could tell you about stand out songs and the gnarly musicianship I saw but it's all a bit of a blur and with Lee having microphone issues, it's difficult to remember what was played when. They definitely played The Hole though and that was pretty awesome.
A Trash Talk show is the sort of show you'll only experience once. They can be pretty scary guys but they're performance is awesome and it is worth seeing them live, even if you don't really know who they are. I loved it, and I'm glad I made it out alive.
Due to the craziness I didn't get any photos or the setlist. Bad times.
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