Olivia Jean at Moroccan Lounge, Los Angeles (June 7, 2023)

Once the screaming hits the ceiling & the white flag is raised & the enemy lines erased...

June 20, 2023

Olivia-Jean-Moroccan-Lounge-6354-Photo-by-Manny-Hebron — Photo-by-Manny-Hebron

As a part of a 6-week cross-country tour to support her new album, Raving Ghost (her third for Third Man Records), Olivia Jean descended upon the primless prism of Los Angeles for a sold-out show at Moroccan Lounge in Aliso Village near Little Tokyo. The band, which features Jean on vocals/lead guitar, bassist Erica Salazar (who was celebrating her birthday), Marco Argiro (guitar/keys) and drummer Mac Powell, effortlessly muscled their way thru an 18-song set that saw the quartet play the majority of Jean’s latest garage rock/horror punk masterpiece while also sprinkling in cuts from 2019’s Night Owl (“Garage Bat” was the opening romp) and fan favorites, “Green Honeycreeper” and “Mistakes” from her delightful 2014 debut Bathtub Love Killings.

In addition to expertly embodying a fun-loving apparition getting their boogie on at a rave circa 1999, the Nashville-based group amped up renditions of “Orinoco Flow,” by Celtic queen Enya, did a run-n-gun take on The Black Belles “Wishing Well” (Jean’s previous band) and closed out the proceedings with surf-infused reading of “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” (“Let’s Know Each Other”), an Indian rock & roll Bollywood song made famous by Mohammed Rafi, and first introduced to U.S. audiences by gothabilly icons The Cramps who entered pop culture conversation again as the sonic backdrop for the epic Jenny Ortega/Wednesday Addams dance scene to “Goo Goo Muck” for the hit Netflix series Wednesday. Jean’s cover of Jaan appears on Night Owl.

This fall, look for this fearsome foursome to storm the Friday stage at Riot Fest in Chicago and then jump on a run with The Hives, which includes a Halloween throwdown at Union Stage in D.C.

Olivia Jean performed at the Moroccan Lounge, LA on June 7, 2023. Photo Credit Manny Hebron

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