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On the scene at A Live performance for Altadena, that includes hearth victims Dawes and plenty of different acts to mark the anniversary of the Eaton hearth.
When Liz Wilson noticed the Eaton hearth advancing, from her dwelling in Pasadena final yr, she knew that life would by no means be the identical in her nook of Southern California. On Wednesday, the one-year anniversary of the catastrophe, A Live performance for Altadena felt like essentially the most optimistic place to be.
“Individuals didn’t simply lose their houses, they misplaced their group,” Wilson mentioned, within the foyer of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium the place scores of native acts had gathered for the profit present. Organizers booked it to increase funds for the Altadena Builds Again Basis, and to present locals one thing hopeful to attend on the painful day of Jan. 7.
“This isn’t only a fundraiser, however a approach to reconnect and present help for group that’s surviving,” she mentioned. “Altadena was and is an arts group, that’s an enormous a part of it. We’ve got so many pals and neighbors persevering with to determine in the event that they’re coming again, in the event that they’re capable of rebuild. The extra distant you get from it, it’s possible you’ll overlook. However we haven’t.”
The anniversary of the Eaton and Palisades fires, starting one of many metropolis’s most tough years in latest historical past, was largely marked by quieter reflections on the loss and the way a lot work nonetheless laid forward. However Altadena specifically was a historic group for musicians and artists. For them, getting collectively for a present felt like a pure approach to honor the event and look forward.
Kevin Lyman, the Vans Warped Tour founder and USC music trade professor, is a two-decade Altadena resident who was displaced from his dwelling for 4 months after the Eaton hearth. He organized the live performance for the group to make use of the day to reconnect, and hold deal with the work left to do.
“On this enterprise, I’ve obtained to be an optimist, and every single day I see extra vehicles coming into Altadena with lumber and employees. You go away for just a few days and see a body of a brand new dwelling. However then you definately go to the following block, and there are 5 empty tons,” he mentioned.
“One of many hardest elements is that in case you’re residing up there, you may go two miles away and life simply goes on,” he added. “You’ve obtained to remind those that we’re nonetheless right here, folks nonetheless can nonetheless use assist. Artists that survived and reestablished themselves are right here supporting artists that haven’t been.”
Altadena resident and actor John C. Reilly hosted the evening, noting the resilience of rebuilding efforts and tossing barbs on the utility firm Southern California Edison, whose gear ignited the hearth: “An organization that prioritized income for shareholders over enhancing infrastructure,” as he put it. He pilloried President Trump’s reactions to the blaze: “He instructed us to go rake leaves? Go f— your self, dude.”
The evening highlighted ground-level activism from organizers like Heavenly Hughes of My Tribe Rise, who led the group in a raucous chant of “Altadena’s not on the market.” However the dwell performances discovered poignancy in the town’s spirit as a music city. L.A. Latin rock group Ozomatli began the evening with a jubilant jam down the aisles, whereas Everclear’s Artwork Alexakis famous between riffs that after the Eaton hearth displaced him, “I needed to dwell in a resort for 5 months, however I’m fortunate.”
Travis Cooper drove down from Northern California for the present, moved by the methods Altadena held to its cultural id after the Eaton hearth. His mother and father misplaced a house in a fireplace in Redding just a few years again, so “I can relate to how devastating that feels,” he mentioned. “Even the specter of it rising up was horrific, so to have that really occur was one other degree. However my mother and father had folks donate garments, locations to remain, and that meant lots to them, so we needed to come back help this group too.”
The headline act of the evening was the Altadena folk-rock group Dawes, whose founders misplaced houses and kit within the Eaton hearth. They’ve develop into emissaries for the neighborhood throughout the music trade, performing eventually yr’s Grammys simply weeks after the hearth.
On the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, they led a spherical robin of acts together with Brad Paisley, the Killers’ Brandon Flowers, Aloe Blacc, Jenny Lewis and Rufus Wainwright. They had been accompanied by vocal virtuosos Lucius and blues-rock rippers Judith Hill and Eric Krasno, every fixtures within the native music group attempting to rebuild itself within the wake of the Eaton hearth.
Altadena is a deeply intergenerational group, and the group felt the many years of L.A. music historical past in Stephen Stills popping out for Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Price” subsequent to a youthful act like Lord Huron masking the Kinks’ “Strangers.”
Dawes is a veteran L.A. act, and songs like “All Your Favourite Bands” had new texture within the gentle of how the hearth upended the lives of so many artists. “I hope the world sees the identical individual that you simply all the time had been to me,” Taylor Goldsmith sang. “Might all of your favourite bands keep collectively.”
For these bands nonetheless attempting to remain collectively, the evening was redemptive. Jeffrey Paradise, the Poolside frontman who misplaced his dwelling within the Palisades hearth, DJed the live performance’s official after-party. He’s since relocated to Glassell Park, and acknowledged that the fires are nonetheless a difficult matter, for him and for pals attempting to help these displaced.
“It’s laborious to speak about as a result of so many issues are combined up in it,” he mentioned. “It was the worst yr of my life, but additionally nice and heartwarming to see help from folks. It’s so laborious to reply the way you’re doing as a result of I don’t have a straightforward reply,” he mentioned.
A live performance like this was one approach to acknowledge the gravity of final yr’s loss, but additionally to boost cash to assist everybody get again to the land, folks and music they love.
“It’s a catastrophe, and we’re getting by a catastrophe. I wish to be resilient and assist others, and do what I can to maneuver ahead,” he mentioned. “It forces you to reinvent who you might be and redefine what issues. I don’t have an possibility to not.”
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