Trophy Eyes Continues US Tour in Los Angeles
Article written by and photos by Natalie Ryan
Australian punk rock band Trophy Eyes stopped by Teragram Ballroom with support from House & Home and Rarity in Los Angeles on May 16th, over halfway through their tour. From Richmond, VA, alternative rock band House & Home got the crowd moving to start off the night. Hailing from Hamilton, Ontario, post-hardcore band Rarity kept the good energy going onstage. With their third studio album released in June, the Canadian band has been steadily making a name for themselves in the scene. Toward the end of their set, they played “Worn Down” and “Exhale” acoustic, with many fans in the audience singing every word of the emotional songs.
All the way from Newcastle, Australia, Trophy Eyes was formed in 2013 and consists of vocalist John Floreani, bassist and backing vocalist Jeremy Winchester, lead guitarist Josh Campiao, and drummer Blake Caruso. When it was time for Trophy Eyes to start their set, they ran out and immediately jumped into “Blue Eyed Boy”, a track off their 2023 album “Suicide and Sunshine”. John Floreani brought out his dance moves whenever he wasn’t singing and the crowd jumped around and sang with him. While Floreani did not stage dive, which he is known to do, there were about five people that crowd surfed and subsequently stage-dived during the entire show.
At the Buffalo, New York stop earlier in the tour, a 24-year-old suffered a spinal cord injury when Floreani dove from the stage into the crowd, ending the show early to ride with her to the hospital. Bird Piché, a longtime fan, is currently in rehab and is expected to make a full recovery. This accident caused unnecessary discourse about crowd surfing and hate towards Trophy Eyes and specifically Floreani, especially due to many major news and media outlets picking up the story. All that really matters is supporting Bird in her recovery and ensuring that as concert-goers, we are participating in a crowd that is willing and prepared to hold up crowd surfers and do our best to protect anyone who may need it. Bird’s GoFundMe can be found here.
About halfway through the show, Floreani took a moment to ask everyone to withhold surfing or coming on the stage for the rest of the night. There was an attendee who kept trying to get on stage and jump into the crowd while acting drunk and belligerent, leaving Floreani and other members to struggle to make him use the stage exit in the middle of a song without any help from venue security. Floreani went back to his mic and urgently asked if there was any security or anyone to help them, and security finally started moving and dragged the disruptive person away.
Floreani thanked everyone else profusely for coming and said that the band is having a rough time, but it meant everything that so many people still came to their show. He talked about how “Suicide and Sunshine” didn’t reach as well on social media as it could’ve because of the word “suicide” being in the title. Before playing “Life in Slow Motion”, a dissociative song about the beauty and chaos of life, with the throughline of everything being temporary, he said that the song is representative of how he feels currently. The rest of the show went on without interruption, ending with popular songs “Chlorine”, “You Can Count on Me”, and finally “Bandaid”. The majority of the crowd was loving it, although some people seemed to be very drunk and/or feeling faint. After the band had finished, thanked everyone again, and handed out setlists and other memorabilia, Floreani came back to the mic. He was clearly angry and upset for what had transpired throughout the night and called out the venue for over-serving drinks and allowing people to get too drunk and causing problems, then barely helping when the band was struggling on stage. On that note, the show was over.
I have been a fan of Trophy Eyes for almost ten years, and I will keep recommending their music and going to see them. That being said, I don’t think I would recommend this venue, and it was unfortunate for everyone that they ended up playing there. I have a lot of respect for the band for pushing through everything and still playing a great show despite the circumstances.
