Andy LaPlegua was sweating all over us, and everyone loved it. Pounding beats and distorted vocals had everyone moving nonstop around Combichrist’s stage at Catch One. I spent the night in that stage area doing photo coverage, close to the action as Andy kept interacting with the fans.
Das Bunker’s 30th anniversary really felt like a massive homecoming and a big reunion for the whole industrial family and underground community. Everyone went all out with their outfits; the darkwave and industrial style was on point everywhere you looked. White face paint, rows of studs and glowing red goggles stood out among the black clothing. The crowd had dressed for an occasion, and Combichrist’s early material gave that occasion its sound.
The anniversary show had been billed around a special throwback set, with The Treasury and Das Bunker’s resident DJs also on the lineup. The choice of headliner came with a long association between the club and the artist. I got a small reminder of that history before the show, with Andy and Franck H-Bomb together during soundcheck.
The people in the photograph
I got to meet Andy and Franck and took a photo of them together. Having one of Das Bunker’s longtime DJs and co-promoters alongside Combichrist’s frontman made that an especially fitting picture to get on this particular night. Franck was also on the anniversary flyer’s Noise Room lineup, still participating in the club’s musical life as it reached thirty.
Das Bunker began in a Long Beach bar in October 1996. In a 2011 interview with I Die: You Die, co-promoter Rev. John described its early focus on European EBM and electro, followed by an increasing interest in power noise. The club developed outside the Hollywood circuit, making space for harsher electronic music and eventually expanding into larger venues. The reunion at Catch One belonged to that longer history of people finding a place to hear the music they wanted.
Combichrist had a place in Das Bunker’s recorded history well before this anniversary. The club’s 2004 compilation Fifteen Minutes into the Future included “Das Der Bunker”, putting the connection right there in the song title. That release predates Everybody Hates You, the album that would become such a defining part of Combichrist’s early club identity. There is something satisfying about that timeline alongside the soundcheck photograph: the association reaches back to when these were new records.
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The early records hit home
The music pulled super heavy from the early Combichrist catalog. That history begins with The Joy of Gunz, released in 2003, followed by Everybody Hates You in 2005 and What the Fuck Is Wrong With You People? in 2007. Those first three albums established the sound this anniversary set was looking back toward: hard electronic rhythms, abrasive textures and vocals that could make a dance track feel confrontational.
On Everybody Hates You, techno and electronic body music meet the rougher edges of power noise. The hooks and samples give listeners something to recognize inside all that abrasion. By What the Fuck Is Wrong With You People?, the provocative language and beat-driven attack were firmly established. Those records make sense in a club because the aggression has a practical purpose: it gives people something forceful to dance to.
Combichrist killed it onstage. Andy was interactive with the fans, and his distorted delivery sat alongside an exchange that felt familiar and affectionate. One knee up at the edge of the stage, he reached toward the hands coming back at him. There was a funny contrast between the hostility in the music and how pleased everyone seemed to be there. A record called Everybody Hates You makes a pretty good excuse to get together when everyone knows what they came for.
They played “At the End of It All” and a bunch of the classic early stuff. The song comes from 2009’s Today We Are All Demons, extending the focus past the first three albums. The emphasis was on that earlier electronic identity, with room for material from the years immediately after it.
This was also a deliberate choice within Combichrist’s current schedule. The Venom in the Mouth of God arrived in July 2026, and the band’s North American tour was running under that album’s name. The Los Angeles date was specifically marked as an old-school set. With a new release already out, setting aside this night for older material gave the anniversary its own musical focus.
More than one room
The anniversary’s layout also reflected Das Bunker’s life as a dance club. The flyer placed Combichrist on the main stage and The Treasury in the Jewels Room, with DJs Mimi Cry and IHX. Franck H-Bomb and The Operative were listed for the Noise Room. Those separate spaces gave the celebration room for different parts of the industrial scene, while the main stage concentrated on Combichrist’s earlier years.
The Treasury brought a newer name to that bill. Richmond-based musician Troy Hancock came through the Raleigh punk scene before developing the project around synthesizers and drum machines. His debut EP, Permanent District, came out through DKA in October 2025, drawing on EBM, 1990s techno, post-punk and synth-punk. That booking put a recent release alongside an anniversary set reaching back roughly two decades. My photo coverage stayed with Combichrist, but the programming made space for both.
Rev. John had described that balance in the 2011 interview, explaining the responsibility he felt to introduce clubgoers to unfamiliar music: “we are where the patrons look for new music.” Remembering favorite records and finding another artist to follow can happen on the same night. For a club celebrating thirty years, leaving room for both seems like a sensible way to keep having birthdays.
Afterglow
The soundcheck photo of Andy and Franck offers one way to remember Das Bunker’s 30th: two familiar figures together for an anniversary. The view from Combichrist’s stage offered another, with the crowd dressed up and moving nonstop while Andy worked close enough to share the sweat. I got the photograph, but that messy exchange is what gives the reunion its character. Everyone went all out, Andy included.
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