Date: Saturday, Feb 26th, 2011
Line up: Pepper, The Supervillains, Alyssa Jacey
Location: The Coach House. San Juan Capistrano, CA.
What: Law Records Friends & Family Acoustic Tour. All Ages, $25 Cover
On Saturday, February 26th 2011 Law Records own, Pepper and tour-mates The Supervillains, stopped by The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, CA in one of the 6 Law Records Friends & Family Acoustic tour that hit the west coast. Doors opened at about 7pm & the first act went on stage at about 8pm.Opening the night was Alyssa Jacey, a San Diego native who set the mellow mood of the night with her bluesy, intimate & acoustic driven music that seemed to be poetry based.
The venue appeared small from the outside, but it was big inside and looked to be well over the 480 person capacity! Rows of tables surrounded the general area displaying a more restaurant style environment which brought a nice dinner-show feel to the night with folks sitting down, enjoying dinner & drinks; perfect for an acoustic evening. 
The bar was located towards the back, facing the spacious, elevated stage while the dance floor area was located directly to the right of the stage. It was a bit odd to see folks dancing and standing directly to the side of the stage, rather than upfront where patrons are typically accustomed to gathering when enjoying a sold out show.
Orlando Florida’s own, The Supervillains played direct support to Pepper and opened up their set at about 8:45pm with an hour long skankin’-acoustic, southern rock approach accented with the saxophone courtesy of new arrival, Nathan Anderson. The Sax was the highlight of their set often drawing cheers for the many leads & solos that blended well with a laid back acoustic approach. The sold out southern California crowd embraced the Florida natives, as they energized the crowd with their drunken belligerence humor & song parodies dedicated to drinking. Acoustic bass, drums, percussions & saxophone made up the sound for the group as they played a catalog of songs from their new album Postcards From Paradise.
Drummer/Vocalist Dominic Maresco was positioned at the front of the stage, rather than towards the back where drummers are usually found. The Supervillains closed out the show with their cover of Johnny Too Bad while Drummer/vocalist Dominic Maresco asked the crowd to repeat Woah-ohhhhh every time they mentioned Johnny Your Too Bad while playing the song. And it was the Woah-ohhh that closed out The Supervillains set leaving the participating audience in high energy for the headlining Hawaiian natives & label mates, Pepper.
Pepper made their way to the stage at around 10:15pm and brought in that comfortable, staying-in feel by playing popular songs in an acoustic environment, including the use of three acoustic guitars, drums, percussion along with the help of keyboard to further accent the sound. The golden toilet bowl used as a throne for front man, Brett was a sight to see, while Kaleo preferred to sit on a full blown medicine ball. Pepper played a set of classic songs, including Stone Love, that opened up the set followed by other favorites, in no particular order, with songs such as Things That You Love, a sped up version of Hos, Crazy Love, Rent, 
Bring Me Along, and No Control. Also included were songs from their latest release in the Stiches EP, including Lonely, Drunk Girl, and Mirror. Two songs were also new to the Pepper musical environment.
Pepper interacted well with a sold out crowd in-between songs laughing and making jokes. At one point, Brett broke out the bottle of jagermeister and fed each member of the group as the remaining members provided the fun background music to the Jager drinking ceremony. As he announced to the crowd while walking across the tabletops where the fans sat, Drummer Yesod Williams gave the crowd a trip down memory lane recalling their first show at the Coach House back in 1999 with Bargain Music. They agreed that the Coach House was one of their favorite so-cal venues as it was home to them since coming over to Cali from Hawaii. They had a very laid-back attitude, smiled a lot, and appeared very at-home, in a venue they referred to as home.
It was mentioned throughout the night that the show was being recorded through the sound board to provide a live recording from the night. Whether or not this means a live acoustic release will happen as a result of this show or tour remains to be seen. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
– Article by: Liz sandieganliz Pimentel
– Photos by: David Norris
