The event has also become the South Bay’s premiere musical festival. This year’s D-Man Festival, held last Saturday at Seaside Lagoon in Redondo Beach, attracted over 1,000 people and featured a dense lineup of homegrown musical talent. Seven acts – headlined by perennial South Bay favorite Tomorrows Bad Seeds – kept the D-Man Festival crowd entertained from start to finish.
The first band to hit the stage was West Swell, four high school juniors based out of Torrance whose 32-minute set had them ably pumping out a mix of reggae and rock-infused originals, including all five tracks from their EP Roots? Fresh off a performance at the Shoreline Jam, West Swell seemed a natural fit for the D-Man festival. The breezy lyrics and summery beat of their song “Rise Up” got the early festival crowd into the groove.
Redondo Beach’s Special C served up an action-packed reggae punk set. Prefacing their song “O Face” with the colossal understatement, “This one’s a skanker,” they launched an energetic aural assault. An incredibly lifelike cardboard cutout of a beaming Marsee enjoying a beer with one hand and throwing a friendly shaka with the other seemed to look on approvingly. Towards the end of the set, a cover of Pennywise’s “Bro Hymn” offered a poignant reflection on lives lost too soon.
Next up was Redondo-based Midnight Lamp, who delivered a juicy combination of soulful originals and crowd-pleasing covers. The vocal stylings of Joyce Isles and Jason Flentye, backed by a gratuitously talented group of musicians, propelled Midnight Lamp through Motown favorites such as “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone.” During “Regrets,” a Jason Flentye-penned original, fans were treated to a soul-shaking guitar and sax duel featuring Jason’s father, Fred (on guitar) and Steve Arnold (on sax).
Midnight Lamp has the special distinction of being one of only two bands, along with Tomorrows Bad Seeds, who have performed at every D-Man festival. Marsee’s best friend Jeff Vincent characterized the group as, “the closest to home to Darren.” Frontman Jason Flentye was also best friends with Marsee, who had jammed harmonica with the group before they officially formed.
In the afterglow of Midnight Lamp, Hoist the Colors brought a change of pace and genre with a bursting-at-the-seams set of California-flavored Celtic punk rock. The El Segundo-based group performed several selections from their new album Second City.
When The Black Pacific took the stage, the amped-up crowd was greeted by an equally amped-up Jim Lindberg, the former Pennywise frontman who, along with drummer Alan Vega and bassist Davey Latter, unleashed a chain of punk rock hits from the group’s self-titled album. Their set also offered a spirited cover of Jawbreaker’s “Boxcar.”
Hermosa Beach’s DJ Dik came next, churning out mashup-style tracks similar in essence to those produced by cult DJ Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk. Dik’s taste, however, departed from Girl Talk’s go-to model of classic rock meets 80s meets hip-hop, opting instead for sources as disparate as Chris Isaak, Bob Marley and Empire of the Sun.
Festival headliner Tomorrows Bad Seeds had fans rail riding, crowd surfing, and singing along to every song. Sean Chapman fueled the frenzy by scaling the scaffolding and practically bursting out of his own skin with exhilarated guitar playing and vocals during “Reflect.” Lead singer Moises Juarez, who was close with Marsee, told the crowd, “If D was here, it would have been the best.”
The Hermosa-based group thrilled with their special brand of reggae, punk rock and hip-hop that incorporated everything from satisfying atmospheric bass drops to glam metal guitar riffs. They wooed the ladies with a three-song tribute featuring “Nice & Slow,” “Only For You,” and a fleshed out cover of the Slightly Stoopid/Toko Tasi collaboration “Bird’s Nest,” during which the group ventured into a swoon-worthy sample of Bob Marley’s “Mellow Mood.” They also delivered an incredibly refreshing rendition of The Zutons’ “Valerie,” a song made famous by the late Amy Winehouse.
At the end of the show, Midnight Lamp came back on stage for a D-Man Festival tradition “My Brother, My Friend,” a song written by Jason Flentye during Marsee’s final days. After a hospital visit, Flentye and Vincent hung out in Vincent’s 1965 Mercury in the driveway of the Marsee home. The car had served the three friends on a number of road trips and was laden with memories of happier times. Armed with his guitar, Flentye composed the impromptu piece, which he says, “was not meant to be a memorial song even if that’s what it turned out to be.”
As the sun began its descent, an emotional Flentye addressed the festival crowd: “This is where Darren Marsee’s memorial was…Darren loved the South Bay culture [and] the South Bay lifestyle.” And it seems South Bay loves him back. “Darren was so humble,” his mother, Sharon Marsee, noted toward the festival’s end. “He would have been honored that there was something like this in his name.”
