This past Sunday, September 13th, 777 Booking hosted what’s likely to be the first Beatdown Hardcore show held on Portland’s Eastbank Esplanade (you know, the place where they filmed ‘The Dream of the ’90s’ Portlandia bit). It was a joint headliner with Sunami, coming through to support Seattle’s own End of Dayz with the release of their debut LP Nothing But Hate. The record sports features from Sunami and Portland’s Slime NW, as well as Australian Flatspot Records phenomenon Speed. Getting back to the show lineup– Boise SxE Hardcore band Witness Chamber and PNW locals Tolls rounded out the opening lineup. You could tell that Portland was excited for this show. After a long summer full of smoky scorching days– we needed this.
The weather on Sunday was *chef’s kiss* perfect. Mid 70s with a nice breeze. By the evening the temperature settled into the low 60s. The impromptu venue was a small, festival style fenced enclosure on Salmon street. This part of the Esplanade is a popular skate spot and stands directly adjacent the big 3,500 capacity venue that LiveNation is currently building. This established an interesting contrast with the no frills, no barriers Beatdown extravaganza that was about to unfold. The constant blinking blue lights of several Flock style surveillance lent a cyberpunk ambience to the experience, like the ‘noise punk’ scene in the sci-fi novel Snow Crash.
Overall the event logistics felt well handled. the bathroom situation was great, ample clean portos. The L was that there didn’t seem to be any concessions available for hydration. It’s likely there’s a venn diagram overlap of heavy music enjoyers and SSRI takers. That dry mouth is no joke. Thankfully the lovely folks from Tolls gifted a cold Liquid Death, lifesaving. Sunami vocalist Josef Alfonso was working the merch table
The sound was quite good. 777 brought in a pair of small but powerful line array PAs flanking a low band riser. The mass of bodies served as flesh based acoustic baffle, which helped tame the echos and freeway noise of I-5 above our heads.
The circle pit that formed immediately upon Alfonso’s barked command was a tight tornado of knees and elbows. After a couple of songs in the pit, your humbly winded reporter decamped to the outer edges. Mostly unscathed after moshing, they ended up getting crowdkilled by a ballistic waterbottle to the side of the head. So there’s the hydration. No concussion or bruising reported. We won’t go too much further with this creative writing 101 description of a mosh experience– better to live it vicariously through the lenses of some of the photographers there to capture every spin kick. Time to cross Sunami circle pit off the bucket list. Thank you 777 for an unforgetable show.