On August 30, I drove down to San Diego to catch Remo Drive, a power pop/emo band from Minnesota, play a sold-out show at The Che Cafe alongside supporting acts Beach Bunny and Field Medic.
Remo Drive first caught my attention with the music video for their song “Yer Killing Me,” which is off their first full-length, Greatest Hits. Their emo revival sound and witty lyrics turned me into an instant fan. Remo Drive recently signed to Epitaph Records and released a three-song EP called Pop Music.
I was stoked to finally catch Remo Drive since I had missed their previous tour when they played a sold-out show in LA. However, this time, I made sure to buy tickets to this show before it sold out. I was actually pretty glad that I had gone to this show instead because it was held at my favorite San Diego venue, The Che Cafe, which is an all ages, volunteer-run, DIY collective on the UCSD campus. The small DIY venue has hosted larger acts in the past like Green Day, Touche Amore, AJJ, Converge, Best Coast, and Wavves. The last time I came to The Che Cafe was to see shoegaze band Pity Sex.
Beach Bunny, a Chicago based indie/ power pop project of Lili Trifilio, opened up the night with dreamy guitar leads and upbeat songs about heartache. Some of my favorite songs included “Sports” and “February.”
The second act, Field Medic, a San Francisco folk solo project, quickly became one of my new favorite solo artists with their lo-fi acoustic songs over a drum machine. Songs like “GLITTER” and “p e g a s u s t h o t z” instantly caught might attention with their catchy lyrics and dreamy finger-picking.
Remo Drive finally took the stage and played songs from their latest releases as well as new unreleased tracks. The audience immediately started singing along and crowd surfing to songs like “Art School”, “Crash Test Rating”, and “Blue Ribbon” Before closing the night, they did a cover of Thin Lizzy’s song “Jailbreak” before going into the last song of the set.
The show was way more than what I expected and I was stoked to have discovered new artists to listen to. Although I had to get up at 4 a.m. the next morning, it was well worth the experience to drive an hour down south to catch one of my favorite emo revival bands. I look forward to what Remo Drive has for the future and I recommend following the supporting acts as well.
