The Horrors consist of five band mates, Faris Badwan (vocals), Joshua Third (guitar), Tom Furse (synthesizer), Rhys Webb (bass), and Joseph Spurgeon (drums). They are punk rock with a splash of shoegaze, and definitely have that British Rock sound, which is fitting since they’re from the UK. The Horrors formed in 2005, and have since released two albums, “Strange House” and “Primary Colors,” as well as three Fanzines. They took to the stage around 11:00pm, and the place was packed with a lot of familiar faces from the San Diego music/DJ scene.

The energy was great, front man Badwan was an eccentric character, summoning the crowd with his arms, screaming into the mic, and saying smart allecky things in his British accent in between songs. At one point he commented that there were “a lot of professional photographers in the audience” which there were as could be seen by the sporadic flashbulbs. Someone in the front row even tried to take a picture of him with their phone, but he batted it away.

While the sound certainly had a lot of punk influence—face paced, loud, banging guitars—there was also a bit of the psychedelic effect  from the synthesizer (which I guess makes it “shoegaze”), giving it a little bit more musicality. In addition they have a few slower paced songs that had a bit of The Cure feeling to them with a modern twist. Overall, I thought it was an awesome show. Fun to watch, fun to listen to live or recorded, and definitely worth checking out.