Orange County’s Beach Goth Festival Mixes and Matches Amid Rainfall

Matt Corkill

Orange County at first provided a bright and sunny day for the backdrop to darker sounds with a lineup of legends on the Beach Goth stages at the Observatory Grounds, but then rain hit the festivities hard.

The main BGV Dome stage was non-stop with artists such as Cold Cave, Corbin, and Blaqk Audio opening before The Faint brought electronic Omaha style to the raging crowd outside. Without missing a beat, TLC and Melanie Martinez followed, showing the range of old school to new with fans chasing them for pictures and autographs after their sets. James Blake and Bon Iver closed out the first night.

At the RX Outdoor stage fans were treated to Rupaul’s Drag Race before Violent Femmes rocked the house with a majority of their hits. Patti Smith was a highlight playing a handful of songs written before a majority of the fans were born, but sang back almost every word while dancing. King Krule played a couple of new tracks and The Growlers, who helped to found this festival five years ago, were having fun on stage, joking with each other as they played for the packed crowd.

Inside at the Observatory and Constellation stages the fans packed in for a killer set by the Swmrs complete with crowd surfing and walls of death in the pit. TSOL came out and rocked the stage via 1980 with Jack Grissom in proper makeup. Tricky was his soulful self and DJ Quick closed out the first night along with Yellowman.   

Sunday brought rain to the delight of many festivalgoers. A couple of popup tents provided relief for She Wants Revenge as they played for the soaked masses in attendance while the Adicts seemed completely unhindered by any of the rain with PT in war paint setting off confetti pyrotechnics.  

The rain did pool enough to shut down the Outdoor RX Stage and move artists such as The Drums and Nicolas Jaar inside for shortened sets. Fans crossed pseudo bridges to get over the flooded areas but rocked out with anything somewhat water resistant such as trash bags while photographers had to think fast to protect their equipment. The rain subsided enough to reopen the stage for RL Grimes, but Grimes had to cancel her set after an hour of scrambling to attempt repairs. Water and electronics don’t mix.   

Over at the main BGV Dome stage the rain was not as detrimental to the lineup with only The Growlers, experiencing a lengthy delay due to a waterlogged soundboard. Future Islands saw a giant dance party form in the crowd as the rain began to ease up and Justice closed out the outside lineup.  

Inside, the main highlight was clearly 2 Live Crew who brought their original hip-hop style to the Observatory stage with their notorious dancers in tow.  

Beach Goth 2016 brought the spooky to the Observatory Orange County on Oct. 22 and 23.