The Echo: Black Flamingo with Nights Talks, The Great Sadness and Dancing Tongues

I was a touch obsessed with Black Flamingo from the years 2011 - 2013. Around 2013, they broke-up and eventually formed various other bands such as Draemings and Brass Box. I'd argue that Brass Box carried on the legacy sound of Black Flamingo while Draemings went in a different direction. Either way, I followed both bands. I got a hint back in December 2017 that Black Flamingo might be hooking back up when I posted a throwback photo on Instagram and got a reply from Dreamings: not ended forever.

Black Flamingo

It took about 7 months, but the band got together and put on a show at The Echo. It was a Who's Who of Echo Park musicians hanging out at The Echo on a Friday night. Black Flamingo, of course, had to joke about how they knew most everyone inside The Echo and that we'd all aged 10 years. Of course, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but true none the less. Though not everyone there knew who Black Flamingo was. As I was photographing, I over-heard someone ask a friend, "What's the name of this band?"

Black Flamingo describes their sound as Tropical Goth or whatever. Their primarily duo vocals (used to be a trio of vocals) soar above and linger in the air, which brings that goth imagery. I think the perfect example is their song "Living Ghost" where Kimi and Ammo start off the song just going off on a choir harmony sound. Their sound just makes you want to sway in joy even though I suppose one should be a touch depressed. I have to admit that I had a smile throughout the set even though there was a lot of goth dress in the audience.

Opening up was Night Talks, The Great Sadness and Dancing Tongues.

Night Talks is always fun to photograph with lead singer Soraya always putting on the moves. They lost a couple members a couple months back. I think that's led the band towards a more guitar driven pop sound.

Night Talks

This was my second time catching The Great Sadness. This is a two piece band that likes to play it on the rough side of the tracks. They opened the set with both under a red covering that was slowly pulled off from them via friends. I nearly had a camera collusion at the end of the set when the drummer tossed his cymbal towards the front of the stage. Not sure how many inches it got to the lens, but it got close enough.

The Great Sadness

Dancing Tongues opened the night. They didn't ease the audience into the night. They went all out for that loud rock sound. And I couldn't help but notice some folks in the audience mimicking the hair tossing of one of the band members. 

Dancing Tongues