LA Dispute @ Summit Music Hall
La Dispute x From Indian Lakes x Flooding
05.05.26
Flooding
One of my favorite parts of a new La Dispute tour is always the raw talent of the supporting acts they bring along each run. With past runs featuring powerhouses like Sweet Pill, Pictoria Vark, Glitterer, Tummyache, VS Self, and Pijn, I knew Flooding would absolutely wash me away. And sure enough, the post hardcore and shoegaze three-piece hailing from Lawrence, Texas did just that.
The set felt incredibly intimate, an upbeat eb and flow of a wonderfully balanced mix between somber and rage. Their song “depictions of the female body” off their most recent EP ‘Object 1’, released back in July last year, is a perfect example of just that. A blend of screaming over overdriven noise and a softer, almost spoken-word element, backed by basslines and drums.
From Indian Lakes
It was my first time seeing From Indian Lakes, but I discovered them after the release of their album ‘Head Void’ back in 2024. The four-piece, originating from Indian Lake Estates, California (where they coined their name), served as the calm before the storm, carrying on the up-tempo shoegaze thread that Flooding had brought to the table.
Heavy fog and strong silhouettes accompanied the emotional sonic atmosphere that From Indian Lakes brought on stage, weaving everyone in the audience within the same cathartic wavelength. But by far my favorite part of their set was the stage presence of bassist Jon Rowe, hopping around and spinning along to the melodies, bringing energy and life to the performance, almost foreshadowing what was to come later in the night.
LA Dispute
I discovered La Dispute sometime back in late 2019, early 2020. I was up late working on an art project with a playlist of Audiotree Live sessions running in the background, and I remember hearing The Most Beautiful Bitter Fruit for the first time, having to pause what I was doing and immediately start the song over again and actively listen and watch the performance. The lyricism alone pulled me out of the project I was working on and into these post-hardcore, cinematic short films that encapsulate a La Dispute song.
This was my third time catching them live. I saw them during the Wildlife 10 Year Anniversary tour back in 2022, got to see and photograph them as a part of the first North American leg of the No One Was Driving the Car tour in Washington DC last September, and got to witness them once again last Tuesday at Summit Music Hall in Denver, Colorado.
The set is mostly comprised of material from their most recent album, No One Was Driving the Car, with fan favorites from almost every release sprinkled in between. Starting off with “I Shaved My Head”, “Man with Hands and Ankles Bound”, and “The Most Beautiful Bitter Fruit”, La Dispute immediately capitalizes on the hype and anticipation brewing within the audience, further ignited by the erratic and visceral stage presence of vocalist Jordan Dreyer. That ignition is immediately apparent within the audience - full of moshing, crowd surfing, and screaming along to the lyrics in a sold-out Summit Music Hall, bringing the heat to combat a snowy May Tuesday night in Denver.
The night wound down with a two-song encore with the title track off their newest album, “No One Was Driving The Car”, an intimate acoustic duet within the set between vocalist Jordan Dreyer and guitarist Chad Sterenberg. A lone spotlight shone down on the two, highlighting the elements of isolation and vulnerability found lyrically and sonically within the song, before the rest of the band rejoined them to end the night with one of my personal favorite tracks, “Environmental Catastrophe Film”, a multipart, introspective, nearly 9-minute epic, with childhood memories interwoven into the history of Grand Rapids and to the albums overall themes of dealing with living in a world with forces beyond our control.
