The Deadly Syndrome’s

music is sweet, then paranoid, then nervous, then chaotic. But there’s something

that holds it together, as the young quartet showed on the South stage. Overcoming a few

first-festival hiccups, the Syndrome fared pretty well — much better than the

cardboard-cutout ghosts that the band stations onstage during their performances. Most

of the ghosts succumbed to the breeze and blew over. The convulsive pop, with its

tinkling keyboards and explosive guitars, held up.

Only when guitarist Will Etling tried to join the set-ending drum circle (the quartet

huddles around Jesse Hoy’s kit in kind of a percussive exclamation point on the song

"Eucalyptus") did the Deadly Syndrome run into trouble. Etling unplugged

himself — his guitar cord was too short to reach over to the drum kit. They simply

weren’t used to playing on stages this big. Get used to it, guys.

Photo: Chris Richard of the Deadly Syndrome (by Kevin Bronson / LAT)