Photos and review by NOTES FROM VIVACE
LOS ANGELES – Echo Park Rising 2025 was a resounding success. Saturday was the official day of the festival, but there were a couple venue pre-parties on Friday evening and a trio of after-parties on Sunday. Saturday saw Sunset Blvd (the main street of the festival) backed up with cars like it was the 110 Freeway during a combination of rush hour, sporting event, and concert confluence.
The situation on the Sunset Strip was no doubt a reason why the guitarist for Valley Queen spent two hours trying to get to The Semi-Tropic. Did he eventually make it to the set? Your photographer / reviewer took off to another set before the set ended, but hopefully he made it for a song or two.
Sunset Blvd was a parking lot of cars while the music venues were where music fans stood in line just to catch a portion of a favorite band’s set. While walking out of Bar Flores, I was asked by an Iress fan if I thought they would be able to catch the band’s set.
Unfortunately, I had to tell him that the band had started their set at exactly their start time of 8 p.m. (actually a couple minutes early). It being 8:20 p.m., the band was likely going to play 2 or 3 more songs. Since he was the second person in line, hopefully security let him in to catch one of the final songs of the set. The Sticky Rice street corner was so packed with people that passersby had to walk in the bike lane.
An Instagram story showed a long line of people waiting to get into The Short Stop to catch MACKandgold’s second set of the festival (the first was during the pre-party on Friday). And, of course, all day long there was a line to get into The Echo. A sneaky way to get into the venue was via the Echoplex – though that option ended by the time that the Tijuana Panthers were set to headline the festival.
What were some highlights of the festival? Addie Addie Addie had the crowd singing back her hook driven lyrics while she levitated above the floor at a packed P.F. Candles Co. OP ED’s rebellious performance at Dada Echo Park was arm raising. TwoLips played an outdoor set at Lowboy in a tight space that didn’t prevent the band from performing their choreographed dance routines.
Slugs played a solo set at Bar Flores, which also had fans posing for crowd photos taken by lead singer Marissa Longstreet. Festival headliners Tijuana Panthers told the fan base, “You guys are wild.” Two fans jumped onto the stage to steal two of the three setlists during the middle of the concert — a bit rude one could say. Meanwhile, there was a constant stream of fans making their way onto the stage to crowd surf throughout the hour-long set.
