Friday Seems Forever- Emo Night at the DBA: Pomona Revival on being Emo, and their Mission

Friday, January 23, the DBA 256 bar, in Pomona,  teamed up with Pomona Revival and sponsored by Loud and Obnoxious, to host a “throw back” night of emo song covers, a throwback shirt contest, and a night consisting of the best emo songs that filled a generation’s hearts and ears, popular ten years ago. With over 9 hours of emo music, the playlist provided by Justin of Pomona Revival was enough to add another throwback Emo Night, on February 20th, due to the success of the night.

Loud and Obnoxious and AKT West, provided the band merch giveaway for the contests for the best “throwback shirt.” They did a top three, with the top prize getting a tote bag of records, tees, and a jacket. Loud & Obnoxious, a screen print company founded in 2007, based in southern California on the DIY mentality, provided the band merch as the giveaway, as well as threw out shirts for the duration of the night. Emo Night also consisted of covers by locals, such as, Patrick and Ginno from Lost Frontiers, Nick from New Manners, and Sean Compas. This isn’t the first time that the DBA and Pomona Revival have thrown a throwback night, yet this event seemed more successful. When speaking to Justin of Pomona Revival, he mentioned in the past with DJ’s on deck, it wasn’t as enjoyable.

“This was better because I catered to a certain group of people I knew would come out and be a good crowd to be around. Guess it’s hard to explain, but everybody was in a great mood (last night) just remembering the good ol days (high school).”

Through the duration of our conversation, it was mentioned that his voice was lost from excessive amount of singing, which I now needed to know what song was it that pushed him to lose his voice.

“‘At your Funeral,’ by Saves the Day. The whole bar sang it and the top of their lungs.”

What is your goal for Pomona Revival?

“Goal of Pomona Revival is for people to see how great of a music scene there is in Pomona, as well as how much talent there is as well.
“I do want to push Pomona Revival as collective though, it’s not just me”

With such a successful night, drawing in a vast crowd, and ultimately having a great night, Pomona Revival is just one of the projects that is going around in Pomona to bring in the music community. Amongst the other projects, and scenes also floating around, I see a unique and dedicated amount of effort from this project. Focusing on all aspects of music and truly uniting for one specific reason: music.

More pictures can be found on their album on the venue’s Facebook page. Below is the playlist on Spotify, courtesy of Pomona Revival, if you would like to relive the night, or that part of you a decade ago where you pretended to not care, scribbled in a journal you bought from Hot Topic,  and wore black.