Twilight Concert Series comes to a close

As summer transitions into autumn, and the late sunsets paired with warmer temperatures turned cold, the Twilight Concerts Series reaches its finale. For the past nine weeks, each Thursday night, the Santa Monica Pier and the surrounding beach was packed full with people coming for a free concert. Approximately 30,000 to 40,000 people attend the concerts each week. The concerts were not only popular among the locals, but they spread widely through social media, especially Snapchat. Snapchat sponsored the concerts; allowing users to have special filters for the concerts and post on a specific Twilight Concert Story. This year marked the 32nd edition of the series with ten new local bands performing. Each week a new band plays their latest albums or most well known tracks. Mayer Hawthorne led off the series on July 7. The first concert was the most crowded, so the majority of attendees sat on the sand below the pier. “I liked it better on the sand because it was better to hear the person next to you and have a conversation with while still listening to the music,” Brandon Lopez (’19) said.Along with Lopez, Joaquin Montero (’19) attended the first concert and watched from the sand as well. He had some complaints about some of the conduct at the concert.“I didn’t like that most of the crowd was smoking, but I liked that the music was pretty good,” Montero said. Although the series was open to all ages, young adults were most drawn to the Thursday nights. The sand below the pier was covered with picnic blankets and small groups. With such big crowds, the law enforcement was outnumbered and not every person could be forced to follow the California laws. Especially as California finalizes legislature on legalizing recreational marijuana, more and more people brought their smoking habits into the public eye at these concerts. Børns, The Psychedelic Furs, Protoje & The Indiggnation, Natalia, Lafourcade, Rüfüs de Sol, Mavis Staples, Save Ferris, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Ohio Players were among the artists featured at the pier concerts. Maria Perez (’17) attended the second to last concert, where Unknown Mortal Orchestra played. Although she didn't like the overcrowdedness, Perez liked the concert overall. “Music brings people together: a song could mean one thing to you but a completely different thing to someone else. Music connects two completely different people,” Perez said. Each concert made Thursday the new Friday with local bands, dancing, and picnics on the beach. All ten of the headline performers recorded in Los Angeles and most performed on the KCRW “Morning Becomes Eclectic” with Jason Bentley. Bentley hosted the concerts, allowing the attendees to hear a familiar voice from their car rides to work. Because of his connection with the players, Bentley was able to recruit twenty local bands to play in the series. The final show to conclude the series was held on September 8. The Ohio Players, a funk band created in the seventies, closed the series with groovy beats and tunes that made the crowd turn disco. Thousands came to the pier and beach to dance and time travel back forty years. This summer tradition returns next July with new lineups and bands to put more fun into Thursday nights.