Brittany Snow
Staff Writer
The Glass House in Pomona hosted headliners Soul Glo and Zulu, with special guest Playytime on Saturday.
Saturday’s event followed a sold-out show at the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood.
The concert hall at 200 W. Second St. in Pomona filled gradually as the night progressed. The sets ranged from 30 minutes to one hour, with an abundance of singing and dancing – and a lively mosh pit.
In between sets, a variety of rap and rock songs were played, ranging from Blink-182 to Lil Wayne.
During the brief intermission, there were snippets of smooth jazz as a disco ball illuminated the room, which soothed the venue from the hardcore punk.
The audience included people of all ages, from teenagers joining in the mosh to adults casually headbanging and drinking.
“What’s funny is I just started listening to Soul Glo last year,” said Rialto resident Dominique Jimmerson, who was invited to the concert by friends who are fans of the group. “I did not know what to expect from anyone, really, but the whole thing was amazing, it was a night to remember.”
The show began roughly around 8 p.m., when Playytime took the stage.
Playytime is a five-piece up-and-coming hardcore punk band from Atlanta, with a large audience on Bandcamp, and a growing Instagram. Bandcamp is an online record store and music community where fans have the opportunity to discover, connect with, and directly support artists they love.
The lead singer, Obioma Ugonna, or Obi, approached the stage wearing a clown mask, later removing it mid-song. Throughout the show, there was energetic dancing from each member of the band, putting on a show in every aspect.
“It was so fun to watch,” said Janine Leslie, a musician from Rialto. “I enjoyed that they enjoyed themselves and the show, and were having a good time.”
During Playytime’s set, they encouraged a close gathering of the audience, to allow the lead singer to surf the crowd – similar to what was seen later that night during Soul Glo’s performance.
Zulu took the stage singing the majority of their most recent album “A New Tomorrow” released in March.
Amidst the performance, the band’s guitarist, Satchel Brown, shared a message with the audience to never give up on their dreams, basing this idea from the band’s first 2019 project growing into their current national tour.
“The idea of where we are at now as Black people on stage having fun and representing black joy,” Zulu’s bassist Braxton Marcellous said. “This means the world to me, to show people that we can do anything we want to do and we cannot be typecast into one thing.”
Marcellous, like many of Zulu’s band members, is a Los Angeles County native, frequenting areas such as Claremont and Montclair throughout his life. He once performed at the same venue 10 years ago, as part of an indie band in his first performances as a musician.
“When I played the Glass House before it was pay-to-play,” Marcellous said. “Now that the bill is ‘Soul Glo and Zulu,’ it is our show, and there are so many people here this is amazing. The fact that it is in Pomona is even better, it is one of my favorite cities ever.”
For their last song, Zulu had the lead singer from Playytime and Pierce Jordan, lead singer of Soul Glo, come onstage to perform their song “Where I’m From.”
Soul Glo is a hardcore punk band from Philadelphia formed in 2014. The band is composed of Jordan, guitarist GG Guerra, and drummer TJ Stevenson.
Throughout the last performance, there were cups, hats and even shoes flying across the pit as people pushed and traveled throughout the circle. There was even more added to the mix when Jordan began passing around the microphone stand which made its way through the crowd.
A common theme throughout the show was the matter of representation. Near the end of the show, Guerra gave shoutouts to other artists of color of all different genres, including Dominican rapper El Alfa, and singer-songwriters Rihanna and SZA.
“Whenever I see Black or brown faces on stage I feel connected and represented,” said Archie Kelly, a resident of Hesperia who fell in love with the artists. “I love to see my own people on stage just having fun and rocking out, it’s awesome.”
Brittany Snow can be reached at brittany.snow@laverne.edu.
Brittany Snow is a junior communications major with a concentration in public relations and a minor in business management who currently serves as a staff writer for the Campus Times.
