The Fillmore functions as a cathedral, in the ecology of bay area live music venues, where bands stamp their mark on having made it in the music world. The brick building on the corner of Geary and Fillmore, a last vestige of what the Fillmore neighborhood once was before “urban renewal,” is a museum in itself. The venue opened in 1912 and functioned as the home stage of the Grateful Dead, who played more than 40 shows in the velvet curtain-lined amphitheater.
Tonight, the sold-out crowd is here to see The Linda Lindas, the punk band from Los Angeles, whose all-female members range in age from 14 to 20 and whose path to stardom was fueled by a viral show hosted in the Los Angeles Library during the pandemic. It’s truly an intergenerational crowd gathered tonight. There are kids as young as five or six with giant headphones covering their ears. There are old white-haired folks with canes and walkers entering the doors.
I meet Paradox, a purple mohawk sporting, leather jacket wearing audience member from Sacramento who follows the band from city to city. “The Linda Lindas are true punk”, they tell me. Another person explains that recently, in Houston, bassist Eloise Wong, jumped off something, broke her leg, and finished the song while on her back playing the guitar. Then, instead of getting carted off the stage, she asked for a chair and played the rest of the set seated before going to the emergency room for her leg to get reset.
On the second floor of the venue, posters of many of the concerts played in these hallowed halls over the last 60 years hang 20 to 30 feet up above the heads of the crowd, who are eagerly waiting for The Linda Lindas to take the stage. Many concert goers look up, pointing to bands they recognize. I met Avery (age 9), whose favorite poster is the one with two faces on it, and her brother, Davon (age 7) who says his favorite is the one with the stray cat.
Tonight, the poster for the show is made by an artist named Itzel, who I met on the second-floor balcony overlooking the stage. She says that she listened to The Linda Lindas for weeks to “get the mood” for the print and, based on their song, “Racist, Sexist Boy,” drew up a fighter in red and yellow running through a field.
By the box of free apples in the foyer, another tradition of the venue, I met the uncle of Lucia and Mia De La Garza of the Linda Lindas; Anthony. He says it’s crazy that his nieces are now rock stars. He said that five years ago they used to be a cover band who would play benefit concerts at their elementary school. But now they’re performing at the best stage, arguably, in the Bay. He beams when he talks about his family and their dreams coming true. After my conversation with Anthony, I started talking to a father who is here with his 9 and 12 year old daughters, and who wants them to see other young Asian American girls rocking out and learn that there are so many ways to be enough in this world if they just follow their dreams.
The music begins, the dun dun dun of the drum and the wailing of a guitar. In the crowd, kids are on people’s shoulders like statues. The band consists of Mila, Bella, Elois, and Lucia who take to the stage all wearing white T shirts and jeans. They seem in awe of the moment that they are about to share with us. “Can you believe we’re at the Fillmore?” they call out to the cheers of the crowd. “I guess dreams do come true” they exclaim.
Stuffed animals sit in front of the drum set. Animated fish walk across the screen behind them. Mila and Lucia, sisters, sing the next song:
“because I’m talking to myself”
“because I’m talking to myself”
“we’re both talking to ourselves about things that we cannot help, so talk to me”
They harmonize, the lyrics providing space, room for a conversation maybe made a little bit easier to have when said through eight beats.
They jump and run across the stage, seeming like they’re having the most amazing of times. They try to encourage the crowd to dance, screaming into the mic, “I think you look cool, and there’s no way you can’t look cool when you’re dancing. Remember: No one’s judging you.” So much of their music is about figuring out what it means to be themselves and how to support one another in that goal of becoming. While only teenagers, their lyrics contemplate deeper reflections of what it means to grow older, to grow up, and to learn to trust one’s own voice.
The Linda Lindas started out as a cover band just a couple of years ago, often covering the Go-Go’s, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted all-female punk band from the 80s. Now members of the Go-Go’s are regulars at the Linda Lindas shows. Gina Schock, the drummer from the Go-Go’s, is in the audience tonight and sometimes plays drums for the band so that Mila can take to the front of the stage. It’s a relationship between bands a generation apart that I haven’t seen before in music: very intentional learning and mentoring, passing along wisdom, and ushering in who might come next.
The band’s stage presence reminds me of Hinds, the Spanish band who played here a few months ago, their guitarist’s leg in a cast. The Linda Linda’s attitude of unabashedly being oneself is a lesson those of us gathered here may take with us. Before their last song, Lucia shouts into the mic, “Free Palestine, free the Congo, and protect trans people” while the crowd cheers. She continues, “and Never give in, never give up, and never, never never bow down to the racist sexist boy.”
Review and artwork by Christopher LeBoa
