Lost Boy ?, Sharkmuffin, Fruit & Flowers, Fraidycat, and Dan Francia Played Brooklyn's Sunnyvale to Benefit The Baton Rouge Area Foundation, 10/21/16

Lost Boy ?'s Davey Jones organized last night's benefit for Louisiana flood relief.

Louisiana Benefit

This past summer, catastrophic floods in south Louisiana destroyed 60,000 homes, caused at least $30 million in damage, and killed 13 people. At one point, in Livingston Parish, over 31 inches of rain fell in just 15 hours. The American Red Cross has called the devastating floods the worst U.S. natural disaster since Hurricane Sandy. Last night, at Sunnyvale in Brooklyn, five bands and lots of audience members came together to raise some much-needed funds for the Baton Rouge Area Foundation which has already made $1.6 million in grants to local non-profits to help those affected by the calamity.

Organized by Lost Boy ?'s Davey Jones, the evening was an absolute blast that featured some wild performances. I arrived with Chris and Amy Dickman just as Dan Francia was finishing up his set. His band featured Speed The Plough's John Baumgartner, and I wish we could have made it in time for the whole thing; but work and physics prevented us Jersey bumpkins from making it all the way to Brooklyn in time.

Fraidycat were a nice surprise. The trio kind of killed with their sloppy, post-punk pop. They're a band to keep an eye on for sure. Fruit & Flowers, Sharkmuffin, and Lost Boy ? were a relentless 1-2-3 punch to close out the evening.

I'm more impressed with Fruit & Flowers every time I see them. Their dark, retro, surf-inspired songs and the way the voices of Caroline Yoder, Ana Becker, and Lyzi Wakefield blend together hit a real sweet spot for me. Later in the evening, guitarist Ana Becker joined Sharkmuffin onstage to help out while Tarra Thiessen put down her own guitar to mix it up in the crowd. Sharkmuffin's set also featured Thiessen climbing up on Janet LaBelle's drums and bassist Natalie Kirch rocking out and flinging her hair around more than I think I've seen before.

Lost Boy ? closed things out, pulling songs from Goose Wazoo as well as past releases. Toward the end of their set, they brought Bueno's Luke Chiaruttini onstage to deliver his vocal on Lost Boy ?'s "Hemorrhage."

In all it was a solid night, top to bottom, for a great cause. If you missed the evening, you can still support the Baton Rouge Area Foundation through making an online donation. There is still a lot of work to be done.

All of the pictures from last night are going into the Flickr galleries and onto the Facebook page as we speak.