Local South Bay Bands In Hermosa Beach, A Top Friday Happy Hour & A Night Fun Run In Anaheim
By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Blogger & L.A. South Bay Resident
Welcome to the PubClub.com South Bay Party Report!
The Party Report is brought to you by Kona Brewing Company, which will be pouring at the upcoming Beach Cities Beer & Wine Festival!
There’s a lot going on this weekend, including nearly every local band playing somewhere (including at the Hermosa Pier for free on Saturday afternoon) and a look at a great Friday Happy Hour location.
TICKET UPDATE FOR THE BEACH CITIES WINE & BEER FESTIVAL
Only a few of these coveted tickets remain for sale, and the price goes up this weekend. If you’re on the fence, get off of it, because if you don’t get your tickets you’ll be outside the fence at Bay Club come May 13 hoping you’re inside of it.
Link: https://smackfestevents.ticketspice.com/beach-cities-beer-wine-festival-2017
FRIDAY SOUTH BAY’S BEST HAPPY HOUR? TRY TOWER 12
It’s been a while since the South Bay has had a go-to Happy Hour. The kind of place where on Fridays, you start cleaning up your work desk at 4 preparing to bolt out the door precisely at 5. Where the crowd is not only good but South Bay good. Where the drinks are well priced, the food is good and it become a tone-setter for the weekend.
SATURDAY EVENTS IN LOS ANGELES
• Spyder Surf Fest, Hermosa Beach Pier
Don’t get toooo excited when you see the words Surf Fest, for this is not the legendary beach volleyball tournament, but a bunch of merchandise tents out on Pier Plaza on Saturday afternoon from 11-7. However, things do get kicked up a notch when the band Barley plays in front of Hennessey’s starting at 1. Afterward The Who Show tribute band and Good Vibe play on the stage.
The event is free (tho your beers are not, of course! You can get Konas at Waterman’s).
That night, the 12th annual Surf Film Fest takes place at the Hermosa Historical Society (710 Pier Ave). There’s a pre-movie reception from 8-10, a showing of the movie Chasing Unicorns at 10 and then a post-event reception (something tells me that involves beer). Tickets are $10 at the door.
• Graceband & The Spazmatics At Saint Rocke
Elvis lives again at Saint Rocke! It’s Viva Las Vegas in Hermosa with this 12-piece high-energy band that brings the King’s live shows back to, well, life. Graceband takes the stage at 7, followed by the Spazmatics at 9 (both band time, of course) and here’s a tip: It’s $10 to get in to see Graceband but if you wait it goes up to $15 for the Spazmatics.
• Angry Donkey At The Lighthouse Cafe
It’s full day and night of local bands! Angry Donkey is playing Saturday nite at the Lighthouse, starting at 9 (band time).
• LA Weekly Burgers & Beer, LA Coliseum
A craft beer and burger festival with beers, liquor samples, sliders and live music, from 4-7 p.m. Tickets are $55
Link: https://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/1429993
• Night Auction Run, Anaheim
Here’s something different – the Night Auction Run is a running music festival; you run through an illuminated race course to multiple DJ stages, finishing with an explosive main stage after party featuring EDM DJ’s and performers. The pre-party starts at 5:30 and the race, which happens in waves, starts at 7:30. The cost is $60.
https://nightnationrun.com/orange-county-anaheim/
• UCLA Spring Football Game
If you want a preview of this fall’s UCLA football team, the Bruins are having their spring game on Saturday, 1:30 at Drake Field. For reasons that escape me, they are charging $10 (plus parking is at least that much). I just don’t understand why they are charging – spring games are showcases for fans and alumni (and at many schools for recruits).
They should just open the gates like they do at big-time football schools Alabama and Ohio State, where 80,000 show up for the games.
They should also do some hitting in these games. USC held its spring game a couple weeks ago and it was like two-handed touch. Mark my word, the Trojans are going to have tackling problems this season if the coach doesn’t allow them to hit.
Now at the Alabama spring game, there was hitting; heck there was even a targeting call! That game was ones vs. ones and intense, in part because going back to Bear Bryant the winning team gets to eat steak on dinner plates while the losers get franks & beans on paper plates. So quit charging for the spring game UCLA, and go out there and hit somebody!
SUNDAY THINGS TO DO IN LOS ANGELES
• La La Land Day In Hermosa
Hermosa’s Hollywood moment is being re-incarnated as the pier is being transformed back into the way it was for the Academy Award Best Picture (oops, Warren Beatty slip there, haha) movie set, with members of the production team, a proclamation by the mayor, music from the movie and a ceremonial lighting of the vintage lamp posts on the pier. 5-7 p.m.
• Barley & Jeremy Buck at Saint Rocke
This dynamic duo of local bands starts at 2; tickets are $10.
UPCOMING THINGS TO DO: KENTUCKY DERBY PARTY
Saint Rocke, Berry Bly and 310YP have combined to put on a Kentucky Derby party at Manhattan Country Club on Derby Day, which is next Saturday, May 6. That, by the way, is one day after Cinco de Mayo which is on a Friday! I’ll have full details on both and another Derby party in next week’s Party Report but you can get your tix now for the Manhattan Country Club event at: https://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/1469449?utm_medium=bks
PUBCLUB TRAVEL FEATURES
• Hiking To The Hollywood Sign (Well, Almost!)
Sometimes we need to get out and see the rest of Los Angeles – the diversity in this city is incredible, if of course you can put up with the traffic and freeways – so a friend and I ventured out to finally go stand under the letters of the Hollywood sign. And we made it. Well, sort of anyway. Read more:
• New Orleans JazzFest Party Survival Tips
If you’re going to Jazzfest, either this weekend or next weened, you’ll need this so you’re welcome.
https://www.pubclub.com/destinations/usa/new-orleans/new-orleans-jazzfest-essential-survivial-guide/
• Featured Travel Event Of The Week – The Mullet Toss
This is not throwing someone’s hair but grabbing and tossing a fish. On a beach. With a beer in your hand. Where it’s legal to drink on the beach. All day and into the night there’s a raging party at the host bar, a true beach bar, the Flora-Bama. Read more:
https://www.pubclub.com/from-the-bar-stool/mullett-toss-alabama-want-weekend/
• Got Memorial Day Plans? Go Sailing In In The Virgin Islands!
PubClub buddy and TropRock musician (think Jimmy Buffett style) is hosting an incredible week-plus sailboat tour through the British Virgin Islands. It starts the Thursday before Memorial Day and all you have to do is follow Eric’s boat and his flip flops and swim fins through The Baths, snorkeling The Caves, to the Soggy Dollar Bar and it’s famous Painkiller drink, to the legendary Foxy’s bar and off the back of Willie T’s pirate ship. Here’s details:
That’s it for the PubClub.com Party Report. For this and more, go to PubClub.com, Where The South Bay – And The World! – Goes To Party.
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