Echo Park Rising fills the streets with record number attendees

Together Pangea

It seemed nearly every hipster, hippie and hobo in southern California was summoned to the 4th annual Echo Park Rising festival last weekend in Los Angeles, for the limitless supply of free shows and free beer on the menu. With an extra enticing lineup scheduled, featuring such burgeoning acts as Peanut Butter Wolf, The Allah-Las, and Cherry Glazerr, attendance was the highest yet for EPR.

Among the headliners were hundreds of local and emerging artists scattered throughout every crevasse of Echo Park’s main drag, from clubs and cafes to record stores and galleries. Hidden daytime set gems included lo-fi dream pop trio Tashaki Miyaki at Origami Vinyl, rock n’ roll horror film come to life, Isaac Rother & the Phantoms at the Echo, and local surf rockers, Los Craters at Lolipop Records, all pictured here. Later that night, Peanut Butter Wolf made the night his own with a dramatic headlining DJ set.

Together PANGEA brought EPR to a chaotic climax at the Echoplex, pounding out one L.A. punk favorite after another, spawning a frenzy of moshers and crowd surfers unlike any audience of the weekend. One young fan flailed a skateboard hazardously among the crowd and was detained by security, but not without an altercation that left him bloody in the face outside the venue. This was not the first skateboard-related incident plaguing the festival this weekend, as it was reported that a fight over a stolen board resulted in the tragic stabbing and killing of a 22-year-old man near the Echo on Friday.

Despite these uncharacteristically violent incidents, Echo Park won over a record turnout with its bottomless lineup of exciting up-and-comers, and will continue to enrich the Los Angeles music scene for years to come. For full photo coverage of the musical mayhem, see the many photos below.

Show Review: Jamie Lawlor

Photography: Michelle Borreggine

Isaac Rother and the Phantoms