Brighton’s Lambrini Girls turned rebellion into performance art, while Edging proved that chaos and charm can coexist on the same sweaty stage.
The century-old Regent Theater doesn’t often tremble, but it did for Lambrini Girls’ long-awaited Los Angeles debut, with Chicago’s Edging in support. The venue pulsed with the kind of nervous, combustible energy that only comes when the crowd knows they’re about to see something unfiltered, unscripted, and possibly unhinged.
Edging, a five-piece led by vocalist Faith Callaway, opened with an immediate jolt of controlled chaos. The band’s sound — somewhere between jagged post-hardcore and melodic punk — came alive in the Regent’s echoing acoustics. Callaway’s voice, equal parts venom and vulnerability, cut through the distortion like a flare. Backed by a rhythm section that hit with industrial precision and two guitarists weaving noisy, angular lines, Edging came across as a band on the edge of combustion, but never out of control. Songs from their growing catalog hit harder live — full of frustration, wit, and a sense that every lyric was a pressure valve being released.
What made Edging’s set compelling wasn’t polish, but conviction. They didn’t play for approval; they played like they needed to. Callaway spent much of the set in motion — pacing, crouching, laughing, shouting — creating an unpredictable tension that made it impossible to look away. By the end, they’d turned a curious early crowd into full participants, earning every bit of applause through sheer force of will.
Then came the Lambrini Girls, and the room detonated. The Brighton trio, led by Phoebe Lunny, exploded onto the stage with “Big Dick Energy,” and from there, no one was safe, least of all complacency. What makes Lambrini Girls thrilling isn’t just their sound — a raucous collision of punk, noise, and sardonic pop — but their refusal to separate art from intent. Every lyric carried bite, every joke a blade.
Lunny’s stage presence bordered on possession — diving into the crowd, snarling one moment and laughing the next — while thunderous bass lines and relentless drumming kept the set grounded amid the chaos. Between songs, Lunny riffed on everything from misogyny in the music industry to the absurdity of American politics, and sexual harassment, turning between-song banter into political theater with a punchline.
And yet, for all the confrontation, there was a current of joy running through it all. The Lambrini Girls don’t just rage — they celebrate. Their set at The Regent wasn’t a sermon; it was a party for the furious and the free. The 111-year-old theater became a humid mosh pit, with the crowd erupting, bodies and voices moving in a single, beautiful blur.
By the night’s end, sweat, feedback, and grins filled the room. The Lambrini Girls didn’t just play Los Angeles — they claimed it, if only for an hour.
At The Regent, they made one thing clear: punk’s not dead, it just traded safety pins for self-awareness and turned fury into community.
LAMBRINI GIRLS
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