The Depot flooded with excited fans during their 3-band show the day before Halloween.
The lineup included The She’s, Banshee Boardwalk and Tijuana Panthers. All three groups pulled an impressive crowd to the front and received steady cheers, applause and waving from the audience.
Many fans showed up to the venue ready for the costume contest hosted by Associated Students, Inc. Costume choices varied from cats, 20s flapper girls and zombies, filled the venue and partying with relentless energy throughout all three sets.
ASI staff greeted folks at either entrance with hand stampers, saying that the venue had a much higher amount of people for this show than usual—hence only letting people with hand stamps come in and out.
The She’s, like Banshee Boardwalk, has played at The Depot before and was the first band of the night.
“Things might get a little crazy,” said Sami Perez, bassist for The She’s, shortly before the show. “Tijuana Panthers and Banshee Boardwalk are both really good friends of ours so I think the audience and band energy will be high and it’ll be a very fun night. I hope people dress up!”
The She’s is a four-person, all-female group with a clean, professional sound who have been friends for years and are based out of San Francisco.
“We collaborate on songwriting and sound, so our music is derived from a large and unique group of influences,” Perez said. “All of us have really different song writing styles, too, which creates a pretty unique final product.”
The band focused on its sound during the set, with little interaction with the crowd, but they didn’t seem to mind in the slightest and swayed along.
Second up was Banshee Boardwalk. Beau Mathews, guitar and vocals, described the band’s sound as “Scooby Doo on bath salts.”
The frenetic energy of the group’s fast-paced songs, accented with appropriately spooky Scooby Doo-esque organ music, was exactly what the crowd wanted. The Depot became a sweaty mosh pit full of costumes and hall-full beers from the pub.
The third and final group, Tijuana Panthers, had people moshing and waving their Halloween accessories for a solid hour. Phil Shaheen, the drummer, said he didn’t totally know what to expect.
“We’ve played at The Independent and The Fillmore, but never at The Depot before,” he said. “Special Halloween show, it should be good.”
The three-person group from Long Beach is currently on tour. The crowd received them with loud enthusiasm and was familiar with many of the band’s songs. Minutes into the set, people were crowd surfing. During the show, sweat-soaked fans looking for a breath of air exchanged places in the pit with newcomers who wanted to get close to the front.
Aside from the music, the event also marked Lizzie Schliessmann’s final night as assistant manager at The Depot. Multiple bands found her prior to their performances and gave her shout-outs during their sets. Familiar faces from other shows at The Depot were in attendance to contribute to her send-off.
