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It’s hard not to think of Surfer Blood without imagining late guitarist Thomas Fekete onstage and joyfully playing licks from the West Palm Beach band’s debut LP Astro Coast or its follow-up (2013’s Pythons). “When I met Thomas, he was the one who really pushed me to expand my horizons and to go places outside of Florida,” Surfer Blood co-founder and frontman John Paul Pitts recently told the Broward-Palm Beach New Times when asked about Fekete, who died at the age of 27 in May 2016.
“I got to see that guy in his best, at his happiest.” Pitts — flanked now by guitarist Mike McCleary (guitar/backing vocals), bassist Lindsey Mills and Tyler Schwarz on drums — arrives in Ybor City in support of the band’s first album without Fekete (last year’s Snowdonia), which is surprisingly sunny considering all of the grief Pitts & Co. went through in the time leading up to the album’s creation. Tampa’s own Blonde Tongues — supporting its own new album, Anxiety Dream — opens the show with Iggy Pop-approved Miami Burger Records alums The Plastic Pinks (Plastic Pinks dropped off the bill after CL went to print — Glove. will play instead).
Surfer Blood w/The Plastic Pinks/Glove/Blonde Tongues. Sat. Aug. 25, 9 p.m. $13-$15. Crowbar, 1812 N. 17th St., Ybor City. ticketfly.com.
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