Tennis System 2016 cARTel Outdoor stage

The promise of L.A. may well lie in Tennis System, who have thundered their way through their adopted city with a reverb-drenched ferocity that has, in short order, made the East Coast transplants the city’s band to watch.

One listen is all it takes to comprehend why: Tennis System are masters of unhinged, lo-fi psychedelia, laced with the inescapably pop DNA of Jesus and Mary Chain, Nirvana and Ride. Behind the sweat-drenched performances, behind the Orange amps and squalling anthems is a coolly leather-clad trio, composed of front man Matty Taylor, drummer Hector Gomez, and bassist Zach Bilson. Arriving at the current lineup, however, was a spirit quest that took Tennis System from one coast to the other: It was in gritty Washington, D.C. that a young Taylor steeped like tea in the music of Fugazi and Bad Brains, Black Tambourine and Nation of Ulysses. He decamped for Los Angeles, where denizens Gomez and Bilson joined the band, propelling the band forward as a full-fledged L.A. band.