Today, in another edition of “Yep, We Called It,” the Growlers have announced their own spin on the annual Beach Goth Festival, The Growlers Six, hosted Oct. 28 and 29th at the LA Waterfront in San Pedro. Aside from the dual performances by the band just as they have done for the last several years, headliners for the fest include the same grab bag-style lineup of heavy hitters—Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Modest Mouse, The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, Butthole Surfers, Danny Brown, Bad Brains, Girl Talk and more.
Almost a year after the band was sued by the Observatory’s parent company Noise Group for copyright infringement over the use of the name Beach Goth, the band decided to launch their own reboot of the fest with a strong, albeit far less creative name. But hey, at least now there’s no mistake about who’s throwing the damn thing. The fest is said to be curated by the Growlers and supported via Live Nation and SGE. Anyone who saw the Growlers perform three shows at LN’s new House of Blues Anaheim earlier this year probably saw that one coming.
According to the Noise Group lawsuit, before the 2016 festival, the Growlers asserted that they owned the festival and the rights to use the name “Beach Goth” to promote the festival. The Growlers, through their management company Tournado, demanded a substantial increase in payment (sources tell us it was aloooooot more dough than last year) and refused to play if their demands were not met. They applied to trademark “Beach Goth” in 2014 but abandoned the application. “This was done without Noise Group’s permission or consent,” the suit alleged.
Though it was pretty clear that the band would not be doing another Beach Goth, there’s no mistaking that this is the their shot at stealing the thunder of their annual homecoming show for which they received a ton of flak when the fest ran into a host of logistical problems, delays and bad weather last October. But knowing Growler fans, putting one bad year behind them doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch as long as everything goes smoothly this time around. You can bet we’ll be watching this closely…
Early bird two-day G.A. passes are $150 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, Aug. 11. Click here for more details.
