Cruel World 2025

Black lace in the Pasadena sun, eyeliner holding out against all odds, and a golf course that spends the rest of the year hosting people who would not understand a second of this. The goth kids grew up, kept the records, and once a year they take Brookside back. The age range is the tell: teenagers who found post-punk through an algorithm standing beside people who saw these bands the first time around, and the two groups get along better than anyone expects. Nobody here performs detachment. The whole field sings, loudly and without irony, to songs written about not belonging, which is the joke and the point at once. The lineup runs deep through goth, post-punk, and new wave, and the sets stretch late enough that the heat finally breaks and the eyeliner stops being a gamble. Bring the friend who still owns a shirt from a band that broke up before you met them. They have been waiting for someone to ask.