The Ice Cream Man crew hit SoCal hard this month. The guys went to Long Beach to San Diego to LA and even to our very own in-store performance of Saosin in Newport Beach. Let's hear Gooch's recap from this month:
It's been a busy month here in Southern California. While Ice Cream Man has been traversing the country with his ice cream van Newt spreading joy at music festivals, PacSun stores, skateparks and the like, I've had my ragtag crew here hitting up as many local events as we can.
As you may know, I got married in the middle of last month. Since we had events on the calendar for the week after that while I was on honeymoon, I had to scramble to get it all organized. While I was gone the crew found time to stop by a hellogoodbye show at Chain Reaction in Anaheim to sling ice cream to hundreds of excited fans. A couple days later, the truck holed up in our home town of Long Beach at Buskerfest featuring the Cold War Kids. Local bands played acoustic sets for a chance to open up for CWK that night. Bessie and crew came out in support of friends Forcefield On, who unfortunately ended up in second place.
After a small, local ice cream social the next day in Long Beach, Crash grabbed the truck to head up to Carson for the last stop of Warped Tour featuring bands like 3OH!3, Thrice and Gallows among dozens more.
Once I returned, I immediately got back into the swing of things. I headed up to the El Rey to close out the Matt & Kim show there and then got up early the next morning to head down to San Diego for Street Scene. It was the 25th anniversary of the festival in downtown San Diego and we were prepared for a blowout. We posted up behind one of the main stages, getting ice cream to the crew there as well as folks like Jenny Lewis (who would play a song with Conor Oberst later that night), Devendra Banhart and Modest Mouse (who surprisingly may have played the best set of the night). Band of Horses killed it on the opposite stage and Black Eyed Peas closed the night out, going past curfew and picking up an alleged $40,000 fine.
The next day saw Silversun Pickups stop by and play an energized set, but the highlights of the night were from the opposite stage, where The Dead Weather destroyed and M.I.A., elevated to headliner after the Beastie Boys had to cancel, taking her dance party to another level.
Needing the next weekend off, we were able to put together a crew to take Bessie up to L.A. for FYF Fest. An annual delight in the L.A. area, this time around it took place in Los Angeles State Historic Park and sent proceeds to the state park foundation to help save our state parks. Black Lips, Tim & Eric, Lighting Bolt and a bunch more banded together for the cause. Another busy weekend, the truck headed down to Trestles the next day to hit up Hurley Pro surf competition. Unfortunately they weren't able to give away as much ice cream as we'd like, but still had a fun time.
On Labor Day I once again took hold of Bessie and loaded up a push cart to bring out to the Newport Beach PacSun for the super secret acoustic Saosin show. Saosin is headlining this year's PacTour and to wet the appetites of the fans, they played this very intimate set at the store. About 300 people packed into the tiny "venue" for the once in a lifetime performance. A couple days later I made a point to stop by some nearby PacSun stores in Buena Park, Cerritos and Westminster. The Cerritos store was by far the most excited store I'd seen to receive free ice cream.
As if all of this wasn't enough, I made my way down to San Diego once more for the Action Sports Retailer convention, or as it's more commonly known: ASR. I had been having troubles with Bessie, so we borrowed a truck from our friends at Sweet Treats in SD and got some logos on to rock out downtown. Hundreds of people heading out of the convention center got to grab some free treats and we even stopped by stores in National City and downtown San Diego while we were there. On the way out we even stopped by a local park just to get rid of a couple dozen treats we still had left to some volleyball players.
Busy times over all, but keep a lookout, cause be still have more stuff on the horizon.
