spill tab Plays a Hypnotic Hometown Show
Los Angeles, California - March 7, 2026
Last Saturday, spill tab invited Los Angeles into the Lodge Room in Highland Park. It was the last stop on the mini extension of THE ANGIE Tour, which kicked off back in September. As their debut album, ANGIE, approaches a year since its release, it only felt right to wrap up this leg of the tour on a high note –– with a hometown show jam session.
Claire Chicha, the mastermind behind her stage name spill tab, knows how to mold each project into something refreshing and exciting without discarding any of her original clay. It would be a disservice to box her in as just indie-pop or experimental lo-fi, given her dynamic discography dating back to 2019. Chicha is unafraid to carve out something new for herself and explore beyond the confines of a genre without losing sight of the sound she loves and is known for. Her first studio album, ANGIE, demonstrates just this: a beautiful sonic and personal evolution of an artist who can withstand life’s rockier moments.
The show was destined to be memorable, even before it began. Whimsical, twisting floral arrangements sat on opposite ends of the stage as the venue’s speakers spewed out 2010’s club classics like “Everytime We Touch” by Cascada and “Low” by Flo Rida and T-Pain. Everyone in the crowd couldn’t help but notice how electric the energy already was, on top of a stellar opening set by Afternoon Bike Ride.
The opening notes for “Suckerrr” crept in as Claire Chicha (lead singer/guitarist), Caleb Buchanan (bassist), Gabe Stout (drummer), and Austin Martin (keys) made their way to the stage behind a buildup of airy, cascading harmonies and earthy bass tones that reverberated all the way to the bar. Splitting the room into two, Buchanan warmed the crowd up by having one side scream “Can’t let you go” and the other “Only this I know” for the chorus, a cathartic kick off to the night.
spill tab’s setlist was a fan’s dream come true. In an interview with FLOOD Magazine about her new project ANGIE, Chicha said, “I love the tactility of water. There’s such an immediate, physical depiction of it. I like to write visually.” This approach proved no different for their live shows. The carefully curated night threw in melancholy mists that exuded her vulnerability alongside crashing waves of electronica, indie-rock, and everything in-between.
Milky soundscapes surrounded the yearning-fueled “Adore Me,” while dewy undertones in “wet veneer” washed the room in pure serenity, as silky keys slunk around groovy bass lines. “Assis” and “De Guerre” were as suave as their track titles sounded, as Chicha showcased her French over an arrangement of bouncy beats and a frenzy of electric licks.
Aside from songs off the new album, Chicha and the band snuck in tracks from every era, including angsty riffs for “Splinter,” or a spotlight on the singer’s wispier vocal work for a fan favorite like “Cotton Candy.” “CRÉME BRÛLÉE!” conjured up a rowdy mosh pit to coincide with its psychedelic symphonies and distorted guitars that rattled in your ears for a few minutes after it was over.
Like a well-oiled machine, every member was equally as free-flowing as they were in sync, and you could tell they were enjoying themselves throughout the night, even amidst vocal rest instructions and instrument malfunctions. “Bad news. Straight up got laryngitis and lost my voice earlier this week,” Chicha wrote on a huge poster board sign. She quickly flipped to another one that read, “Above all else, I’m so grateful to be here in this room with you guys! Thank you for all the well wishes. Thank you for being here. I love you all so much!” She quickly lost interest in the signs after noticing how cheerful the night's ambiance was. A quarter of the way into the set, she decided to ditch the doctor's order to refrain from talking in-between songs and celebrate with the crowd for their final stop: “It’s the last show, so I’m gonna blow my voice out. It’s fine,” she grinned.
Nearing the end of the set, Buchanan’s bass lost a string, which was met with a nonchalant shrug as he continued to pluck at what was left. “Well, I don’t have another bass,” he told the audience after the song. Going on with the rest of the show, having to adapt to a whole new progression, Buchanan quickly adjusted and never fell out of rhythm.
Photo via spill tab.
Both the band and the audience fed off each other's energy, creating the feel of an intimate house-party performance. The boundaries of the stage were immediately dissolved from the beginning as Chicha expressed constant gratitude to the crowd for showing their unwavering support and jumped around the stage for playful, high-energy tracks like “Athlete” and “PINK LEMONADE.” Buchanan joined in the fun by jumping into a mosh pit and, at one point, sharing a story from the night before, after the band finished their San Francisco show. “Everyone feels like they got hit by a bus on the inside. So we get to the Airbnb, and we’re all like, ‘We can go to bed. We can lie our heads down.’ And then at 5 am, you wanna know what happened? Not one…not two… not three…” he proceeds, “but nine smoke alarms went off at the exact same time.” Touring is not for the weak, but spill tab and her band knew how to have a good time despite the hiccups of road life.
Closing out the night with an acoustic in hand, Chicha performed “by Design” and the album’s namesake track, “Angie.” The room sat in a hypnotic trance as Chicha’s vocals swam in utter conviction for the chorus, “Angie, you’re on my mind,” while a series of pattering drum kicks trailed behind.
Nobody could have prepared me for how spellbinding spill tab live would be. Even with Acute Laryngitis, Chicha and her band gave everything they had into the set with grace and ease.
