Soap Girls, Voxxx, Get in Loser at the Dive Bar - Saturday 7-26-25

 

Our old pal Fast Mike hipped us to the Soap Girls and although we hadn't heard much of them beforehand, we took his recommendation and headed out to a fave haunt of ours that we haven't been able to get to for ages, the appropriately named Dive Bar!

Opening the night was Get In Loser, a relatively new 4 piece punk band from Costa Mesa. More traditional punk rock, not hard core thankfully, with melodic guitar leads/hooks (the guitarist used his whammy bar regularly on his leads, which is certainly unusual for punk rock, which I dug) and some chant-along, call'n'response tunes like "Fight Club" and "Shitshow". 

Up next was Voxxx - the Triple X apparently due to the fact that the singer is an adult film actress, but while she dresses a bit scantily on stage, she was also a fine singer with good, kinda metal-y, stage presence. This four piece (although pix online show 5 people, so maybe they sometimes have 2 guitars?) played a mix of metal and punk'n'roll with some stinging lead guitar work and the occasional cover tune, like Missing Persons "Mental Hopscotch", which was appropriate as their drummer evidently also plays with MP! 

We really knew nothing about the Soap Girls until Melanie did some research and discovered that they had pop hits in South Africa before starting this version of the project and (apparently) moving - although I'm not sure where they are located now as they are constantly on the road, so maybe they don't even have a home base these days! We understand that the two sisters have performed with different incarnations although this evening they were a trio with a live (male) drummer. They are flashy and wear skimpy outfits but preach empowerment (for both men and women but, naturally, more specifically for women) and decry the hypocrisy of sexism, as when the guitarist removed her top - (scandalous!) even though the drummer was topless for the entire set! (They did ask the crowd to get topless - if they were comfortable doing so - which led to a group of shirtless overweight guys right up front!)

Regardless, the drummer was drivin' and the women were talented, with songs ranging from punk to grungey to glammy and whatever else they chose to throw in the mix! There was even a bit of death metal growls going on with their vocals at times with the assist of a vocal effects pedal. They both were top notch singers and had real songs with melodies and power. Super fun show!

Definitely something different for us, but always a pleasure to hang out at the Dive Bar and visit Nate'n'Angie and enjoy the reasonably priced drinks! Fun night!