Los Angeles - Day 5 🎸

Staying out late, X’s on hands. Since when did you like punk rock bands?

This blog is brought to you by Barry.

In comparison to previous days, the agenda I’d set for poor Ellie’s legs today was far less challenging, almost verging on ‘relaxing’. After whipping up our now traditional breakfast of Trader Joe’s Pumpkin-Os (with added fruit) and a banging cup of tea, we were out of the door at 9am sharp for my longest drive of the holiday so far. The six point turn required to get the car out of the tight parking spot and then around the even narrower turn around the side of the building was getting easier day by day and we were on our way into the LA weekend sunshine in no time.

Most of our journeys until now had us heading in a northerly direction but today we were heading southwest towards the coast. Apple Maps had us joining the Santa Monica freeway which was moving relatively smoothly and it was a relatively uneventful journey to Venice Beach, only enlivened by my flagging to Ellie of the number of driverless Waymo cars that we were able to spot around us. It’s definitely a odd feeling to know you’re being tailed by a literal robot but we found them strangely fascinating, with Ellie even downloading the Waymo app to see how much it would cost us to take a quick ride. We weren’t tempted in the end though - perhaps if they featured a ‘driver’ a la the Johnny Cabs in the 1990 Arnie classic, Total Recall I could have been persuaded.

Talking of Mr Schwarzenegger, we were about to arrive in one of his old stomping grounds. We found parking right by the beach for only $9 (easily the cheapest parking of the holiday - my poor wallet!) and dove headfirst into the unique atmosphere of the seafront of Venice Beach. To sum up the clientele as best I can, it’s a heady mix of some of the healthiest and unhealthiest people you can imagine sharing the same narrow strip of land. On one hand you’ve got countless joggers, weightlifters, skaters, and basketball players spending their Saturday morning in pursuit of physical excellence, on the other you’ve got various shady characters, eccentrics, herb enthusiasts and those who under a stronger healthcare system would be under supervision in some kind of institution. All surrounded by sea, sand, California sun and (once you get a few streets past the Yarmouth-esque seafront) a surprisingly pretty town.

We started our wander by Muscle Beach, where Arnold pumped much of his early iron - well, sort of, the original equipment was located further up the road towards Santa Monica. I found one unattended punchbag and gave it a few half-hearted blows so I could add ‘worked out at Muscle Beach’ to my list of lifetime achievements.

Our next people watching took us past the giant metal V to the huge skatepark that sits right by the bench. There were a few kids having lessons, which didn’t satisfy my need to watch someone either do some cool tricks or wipe themselves out painfully, but after waiting a while some of the other lads who’d been faffing around the edge obliged with some skills resembling my Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater days.

Having satisfied ourselves that we weren’t going to buy a tasteless novelty t-shirt or get a ‘marijuana consultation’ it was time to head inland. This is where the vibe of Venice completely changes to pretty brightly coloured houses and trendy cafes. We were there to explore the canals that give the town its name - a whole series of shallow interconnected waterways crisscrossed by steep wooden bridges. It was peaceful, green, shady and quiet, much more Ellie’s vibe. We had a great time exploring the area and imagining what life would be like to live in the area, each house in the vicinity faced the water and almost every one had some kind of small boat tied up outside.

Eventually one of our party was feeling ‘snacky’ (I believe that’s the technical term) so we headed back towards the beach via the nearest ice cream stall. Two scoops of chocolate ice cream procured, we found a suitable spot on the beach to settle in for the next few hours. I took myself down to the water to feel the Pacific Ocean on my toes, touching an ocean where the next stop is Asia really makes me realise just how far from home I am.

Sadly Japan was not sending its warmest water across to the west coast of the USA as the seawater was best described as ‘bracing’ and I spent a few moments warming up back at base before submitting myself to a full plunge. Once in the temperature wasn’t too bad although I certainly needed to keep my wits about me in the sea as the fact that I was mostly surrounded by surfers demonstrates just how rough and high the waves were. After a good session being chucked about by some of the best that Poseidon could offer I rejoined Ellie, who had sensibly decided to sit out this particular adventure.

The rest of our time was spent chilling in the sun, watching pelicans fly past and dogs frolic on the sands, all while steadily burning ourselves (oops). I’m not really one for sitting and doing nothing when on holiday but I have to admit that this was an excellent way to spend a couple of hours. Normal service was resumed when we realised that our intended location for lunch was closing relatively soon and we needed to scurry if we were going to make it before they closed their doors.

Committed blogfans may remember our 2023 Nordic adventures featured my Egg-o-Meter, rating the quality of each hotel’s eggs. Ellie on the other hand strongly dislikes eggs. Therefore I’m wondering if you can guess who had chosen a restaurant called ‘Eggslut’ (in my defence, they do serve non-egg options. Plus it has a funny name). My Sausage Egg & Cheese Sandwich came with honey mustard and avocado in a brioche bun and was a yolky masterpiece - good orange juice too.

Our journey back to the city took us a much more direct, but slower route through suburban streets. I guessed by this point the freeway was heaving and this was the lesser of two evils. At this point Ellie was…done for the day. That’s right, nothing left on her agenda apart from chilling back at the Airbnb and attempting to watch Casablanca after we’d heard so much about it during our visit to the Academy Awards Museum yesterday (her one word review after watching - ‘boring’). Whereas I had a solo mission planned for the evening so if you’re here for all things Ellie Hubbard then I’m sorry to disappoint you!

I’ve always thought it would be really cool to go to a gig in LA, and ever since we booked this trip I’d been keeping an eye on the listings to see if there was anything of interest. For a long while it was no dice until a couple of months ago when I saw that Destroy Boys had announced a one-off show playing their first album in full. They are both one of my favourite bands and an act I’ve never been able to see live before so I jumped at the chance. Sadly this was of little interest to Ellie, while we agree on so much and have similar tastes in many things (apart from eggs) we have almost zero crossover in musical taste, as she generally prefers non-noisy music with a pleasant tune and I…don’t. Needless to say the wedding playlist could be an interesting mix! She was however very gracious in saying I could still attend, and I’m sure it wasn’t just because it would give her feet an evening off.

As parking around the venue looked pretty non-existent and there was a Metro station literally opposite I decided to get there via a combination of public transport and my own two feet. So with the promise that I’d keep Ellie regularly updated on my aliveness I headed out into a warm Los Angeles evening. The walk up to Hollywood/Highland station was easy enough and after a drama free train ride I found myself outside the venue, the Vermont.

The first major difference I noticed

to gigs in the UK was the level of security required to get inside. Despite the venue capacity only being around 1200 and me arriving an hour after doors opened, the queue to enter stretched around the whole block and it took 30 minutes for me to get inside after negotiating a separate ticket check, age check and search by security. Once inside there was another lengthy line for merch, which I braved to pick up a t-shirt and vinyl copy of the album I was there to see performed.

After all those queues I was surprised to see there was almost nobody waiting at the bar. Only later did I clock that most of the crowd around me was swigging from healthy bottles of water, this might be a punk show but this is still health-conscious LA. On the other hand, mine’s a pint, bartender.

I wedged myself into the crowd a short distance from the front stage-right. It was quite a wait for the main event (clearly curfews are a lot later in the US) but it was worth it. Destroy Boys were fantastic - equal parts angry, funny, politically charged and heartfelt. Usually I’ll roll my eyes at any artist that says this is a ‘special show’ knowing they’ve trotted out the same line at the 20 previous gigs on the tour but in this case it rang true as this gig was a complete one off 10th ‘birthday’ celebration for a local band playing a lot of songs from their first album live for the first ever time.

With one eye on the time I scurried out of the venue as soon as the final note rang out, knowing that if I missed the last Metro at 00:15 I’d be stuck in the wilds of Los Angeles. Luckily the penultimate train of the night was pulling into the station as I descended the stairs so I was back in Hollywood far quicker than anticipated. Although Hollywood Boulevard has as many ‘characters’ on it as Venice Beach it’s also very well lit and still had a lot of families and tourists wandering around it despite the late hour so it was a relaxed walk from the station back to the quieter suburban streets of our Airbnb, where Ellie was still just about awake enough to let me in and politely listen to my tales of just how good the gig had been (2 beers + loud music = happy & hyper Barry).