After fires, a venue helps L.A. teens 'escape'

At Backyard Party in Pasadena, fire victims find community and free instruments.

- BY LYNDA LIN GRIGSBY

LULA SEIFERT, 16, of Kim Theory on guitar at the band's sold-out show Nov. 15.

(RONALDO BOLANOS Los Angeles Times)

Through a veil of dark hair tendrils, Audrey Cymone stares intensely into the darkened room. The 16-year-old singer of the high school band Kim Theory croons the melancholy-tinged lyrics from "Growing Pains," their song about adolescent angst.

Why can't things just be the same?

The question hangs in the air as the sound thickens during soundcheck - guitars climbing, drums cracking.

It carries double meaning here at Backyard Party, a new all-ages music venue in a nondescript business park on the border of Pasadena and Altadena.

The band, the venue's team and the audience share an undesirable connective tissue. All have been affected in different ways by the Eaton and Palisades fires. Some watched their homes burn to the ground. Others live as expatriates from their own community because their houses in the burn zones are still uninhabitable. And some simply bear witness to the grief that, almost a year later, still bubbles up.

Before this rainy November night, the all-female band self-described as Riot Grrrl-adjacent mostly performed at house parties and small downtown L.A. venues. To celebrate the release of its EP, "Bitch Scene," Kim Theory chose Backyard Party.

Photographs by RONALDO BOLANOS Los Angeles Times

TEENAGE ATTENDEES dance in a crowd crackling with energy as their parents and guardians look on.

"This is a big deal," says Lula Seifert, 16, the guitarist, watching the line of people snake through the door. "This is an awesome venue."