I also will never forget when they gave me the opportunity to play one of my first-ever solo shows after leaving my old band. “The memory of being an 18-year-old, playing one of our first shows on a real tour, headbanging at a packed, iconic club will never leave me. Last week, Pope replied in a message after expressing sadness at hearing the then-dire news of the closing of the club and her fond memories of the venue. Before then, she was headlining Chain Reaction with her pop-punk band Hey Monday.
Chain Reaction’s long tenure helped a generation of young musicians grow.”Ĭountry music star Cassadee Pope burst onto the mainstream when she won NBC’s “The Voice” in 2012. “Starting a band is always difficult because it’s hard to find somewhere to play … especially somewhere to play that won’t be closed next month. music history as one of the only, if not the only, all-ages concert venues in Southern California to actually stay open over a long period of time,” Offspring vocalist Dexter Holland said when asked about the venue. The response to the news of Chain Reaction’s possible closure was met with an outpouring from the music community. Without them, we’re out of the club yesterday.” None of this would have happened without Ryan Nelson and Jesse Barnett of Stick to Your Guns or Mike Hammer from Violent Gentlemen or Jim Somers of BlackCraft. “I feel lucky that we have a great community, and I think Chain Reaction has always had that. The emotions have been pretty dramatic ever since my wife and I started talking about like, ‘Hey, maybe it’s just time to stop.’” We had already taken stuff out of the venue and we were about to take apart the stage to, like, give away pieces of it to fans. “I sat in my office and I cried the day we decided to close. “I met my wife and some of my best friends at Chain Reaction,” he said. Serrao started working at Chain Reaction as a security guard when he was a freshman in college in the early ’00s and went on to book acts at the venue for several years before becoming the owner in 2014. Orange County rock band Thrice released its own $25 Chain Reaction-themed shirt to raise money via its online store that includes a photo of the band performing at the club with the slogan “Chain Forever.” The Eagles, Grupo Firme coming to Acrisure Arena in Thousand Palms He’s heard from countless bands and independent labels including Rise Records, which he noted have been instrumental in the survival of the club, Hopeless Records and even retailer Hot Topic. The amount of support is overwhelming, Serrao said. There are also venue throwback-style T-shirts available for $15-$24 on its official website,. Anaheim’s BlackCraft Cult clothing company jumped in to help, too, with horror-themed limited-edition designed T-shirts for $28 and zip-up hoodies for $52 at. Serrao said they sold out the 300 T-shirts and 75 hoodies they had on hand for the in-person sale and that hundreds more fans showed up just to express their love for the venue and leave him handwritten notes with their memories scribbled on them.Ĭhain Reaction also partnered with local companies including Costa Mesa-based, hockey-inspired apparel company Violent Gentlemen, which is selling specialty Chain Reaction T-shirts for $26 and pullover sweatshirts for $58 at. They created specialty T-shirts to sell for $29.99 both online and during an in-person, walk-up event at the venue on Oct.
Stick to Your Guns called up the bands Terror, Knocked Loose, Counterparts, Rotting Out and Year of the Knife to come up with ideas to save the club. “We never thought about leaning on the community, but then it made sense, like, of course, the Orange County music community would come out … and it just went nuts.” They’re not working and people aren’t making money and we didn’t have a sense that anyone owed us anything,” he continued during a recent phone chat. “We didn’t reach out to bands or the community to help, because bands aren’t touring. “Jesse said, ‘I’ll chain myself to the building what do you need to survive?’” he said. He called up Serrao and told him, “Nope, not going to happen,” he recalled. Many now-mainstream artists built their followings at the venue, including bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Young the Giant, Fall Out Boy and Rise Against.Īs Serrao began telling friends about the closure, word got back to Stick to Your Guns vocalist Jesse Barnett via the band’s manager, Ryan Nelson. The venue, which didn’t sell alcohol until more recently, served as a space for music fans, typically ages 15-20, to see rising local, national or international hardcore, punk rock, metal and ska bands.
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