Song Spotlight: Valley Queen's Ride (a night at The Semi-Tropic during Echo Park Rising)

When it comes to Echo Park Rising, I call Friday night the pre-party night and I spent the whole time hanging out at The Semi-Tropic. When it came to the actual day of the festival, Saturday, I focused my attention elsewhere until 9 p.m. when I just had to pop in to catch a handful of songs from Valley Queen. 

Valley Queen at The Semi-Tropic

Just as an explanation on why I only caught a handful of songs: I was shooting the festival for Echo Park Rising so I wanted to shoot as many bands as possible. Also, the headliners at The Echo and Echoplex (La Doña and Tijuana Panthers) were scheduled to start at 9:20 p.m. and 10 p.m. so I figured I should shoot their sets for the festival.

Prior to Valley Queen's set, I spent the 8 p.m. hour catching part of Iress' set at Bar Flores. As I was walking west on Sunset Blvd to make my way to The Semi-Tropic (catching another band before making it to The Semi-Tropic), I walked pass the Bank of America building where a pop-up band was playing. The crowd surrounding the band resulted in a take-over of one of the two east bound lanes. That resulted in a major back-up / parking lot.

Valley Queen at The Semi-Tropic

Why do I mention this? It might have impacted Valley Queen's set. The band's guitarist Dylan Rodrigue potentially never showed up for their set. I say potentially, because I wasn't at the full set. When I was there, a guitar was set aside for him so that he could quickly jump in. Lead singer Natalie Carol reported that he had spent the last two hours stuck in traffic, "poor thing." Hoping that the gods of traffic would be kind to him, a chant of "Dylan Dylan Dylan" was yelled out. Hopefully, the gods of traffic were indeed kind and he was able to join in for a song or two -- though if it were me, after spending two plus hours in traffic, I'd have to do a quick rush to the bathroom first and therefore miss joining my bandmates on stage anyways. 

"I like that we're acting like a neighborhood . . . it's been a decade since we've played Echo Park Rising." 

Valley Queen at The Semi-Tropic

I've been following the band since 2015 when they played a set at the Bootleg Theater (rest in peace) -- a venue where I first caught a lot of the pre-pandemic bands that I follow. In 2024, I caught three of their sets. All three were in January when they played a residency at Club Tee Gee. The band's folk sounds fall into the sweet spot that I enjoy. I also tend to see the band members supporting the community. I'll often see Carol and Rodrigue out and about, catching other folk based singers, which adds to my desire to support Valley Queen shows. 

Why am I going with "Ride" as my song spotlight? Okay, maybe it isn't my top Valley Queen song, but I did take video of that performance. I only took video of a handful of songs during the festival (five bands and 5 songs) and so I am going to focus on those songs. I was at the festival from 12 noon until a little past 11 p.m. and didn't take a lot of video, because I didn't want to burn through my batteries and memory cards. The video will be posted on my Instagram page along with this blog post.

Valley Queen at The Semi-Tropic

Buzzbands provides the context behind the song -- those who are mothers and those who are not. It is sung at an emotional high vocal pitch that hits a fever level during the chorus, "You gotta let me ride." 

Alone again

Situation of my own design

. . . . 

I've come to meet my love

I'm finally feeling right  

Partial Setlist: Hold On You, Everybody, Ride, Cassavetes, Two of Cups, Curse of the Unknown, Pavement, Lasso, My Man.