Las Vegas Weekly

Love hurts

Five-piece Pentagon goes dark while mulling its future

Love Pentagon, circa pre-hiatus.

Photo: Aaron Thompson

Las Vegas’ electro-rock superwomen have been hit with a dose of kryptonite. Whether it’s fatal remains to be seen.

Much-adored local quintet Love Pentagon has gone on indefinite hiatus, with the future of the group very much up in the air. “It’s too early to tell,” bassist Judi Brown says. “Don’t expect to see Love Pentagon play anytime in the next few months … after that … we’ll want to play the songs we made together at least one more time.”

The band, which last played Las Vegas on July 3 at Beauty Bar before embarking on a seven-date West Coast tour, put all other plans on hold when keyboardist and recent UNLV grad Marites Velasquez left for Denver to pursue a position writing policy papers for the Public Interest Research Group.

“We wanted to take a break when we got back from tour, but this was a surprise to all of us,” Brown says. “It’s hard to be angry, because she’s doing what she wants with her life, but I’m disappointed that we’re in this situation. We accomplished a lot as a band in the short time we were together, so we’re kinda bummed. But if Love Pentagon is done, it’s not the end of the world.”

Love Pentagon’s heroic costumes, synth-infused tunes and infectious live energy helped it achieve quick notoriety on the growing Downtown music scene after its formation in 2006. A mainstay in the Uno Momentum sound collective, the band—Brown, Velasquez, singer Christina Z, guitarist Amanda Majestic and drummer Courtney Carroll— released debut album Bang! to positive reviews last year.

“I’m optimistic about who is left here to make music,” Brown says. “It’d be great if we found somebody to temporarily fill Marites’ position, but we don’t want to do the band [long-term] without her. The five of us are Love Pentagon. So maybe the four of us will start from scratch and do something new.”

Velasquez’s departure also impacts local indie outfit Action Cat, in which she also played keyboards. That band’s drummer, ex-Curl Up and Die man Jesse Fitts, also left town recently, leaving Action Cat without two of its five members.