By Samir Iydroose
Whatnot
Performing at Shoreline Summer Festival
Armada Brewing
River Street
New Haven
July 11, 2026
Drummer Colson Ganino knocked over his cymbal stand three times in 25 minutes at a waterfront festival Saturday — and had no complaints.
“You’re not a real punk band,” Ganino reflected afterwards, “if you’re not breaking equipment.”
Ganino, who’s 21, formed the New Haven punk/emo band Whatnot a year ago with lead guitarist and singer Patrick Lalonde (who’s 20). They rammed through seven catchy, fast and loud numbers in their 25-minute set Saturday alongside guitarist Zeb Mrowka and bassist Owen Smith, as part of the day and evening-long Shoreline Summer Fest hosted by Armada Brewing. Three thousand people showed up for the fest, which featured 30 bands playing on two stages.
Performing on the main stage, Ganino took his shirt off midway through the performance. He said he gets hot, and has a “reputation as not a gentle drummer,” so he “works up a sweat, especially on an 80-degree day like today.” In addition, he said that he’s been working out, and a girl he likes happened to be in attendance, so “I wanted to show off before I’ve had nine beers and wouldn’t be able to.”
About the cymbals? The tech who put it back up put it too far away from him. No problem.
The band had expected to perform later in the day; the crowd was a little less energetic than anticipated. “There was a lot of inertia, you know, the feeling before the energy,” Mrowka said. “We had to bring all the energy, up to 110.”
It worked. The crowd, while small, responded in kind. It included a self-described “superfan and groupie” named Knox who traveled from Virginia to see the band. Knox (she declined to give her last name) discovered the band through a game inside Roblox called Sesh. (The band received an unsolicited request to include their music in the game, which became a wellspring of new listeners.) She said her favorite song is “Cul-de-sac Avenue,” which was Whatnot’s first single, because it is upbeat and “you can dance and scream in the car to it.” (Check it out in the above video.)
“I was surprised they did so well,” said Knox. “They were better than I expected.”
A highlight of the set was “Bitter Forest,” featuring a series of fun riffs. “I had to really lock in,” Mrowka said. “I turned away from the audience, and looked at the drummer. I was like, ‘This is what I have studied for.’” Ganino’s favorite song of the performance was the finale, “Plastic,” because “it has the tightest tune, and the best chorus, and I was locked in.”
Lalonde said he messed up on some lyrics, “but it was fine, because nobody knows our lyrics.”
The equipment the band used was also unique. Lalonde played a revised version of the first electric guitar he ever got, an Indonesia Stratocaster. Lalonde created what he called his “Frankenstein guitar” by swapping out the pickup, removing some frets, reworking the internal volume and tone controls, saving just the body and the neck.
Smith also performed on his first bass, but he said he didn’t harbor any sentimental attachment to it. He said that he used to play the trombone, but switched to the bass during the pandemic, since the bass wouldn’t disturb his neighbors. “I like how bassists are kind of not noticed, but they have a lot of control over how the song feels and sounds like,” he said. “I also have the ability to emphasize what the drummer does.”
Ganino thrifts all of his drums. He said his cymbal is 60 years old. He found his snare drum in the back corner of a Goodwill. “I like having a simple kit,” he said. “Restraint with a couple of unique sounding drums. I don’t need to bulk it up with a bunch of toms.”
Whatnot has performances scheduled throughout the summer, including a July 27 gig at Cafe Nine.
