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Daniel Valencia/Courier Art Alexakis, the lead singer for everclear performs at the Rock for PEF at the Farnsworth Park stage, on Sunday, October 4, 2015. Rock for Pef is a benefit concert aim to support and spread the word of the essential benefits that the arts bring to the students.
Daniel Valencia/Courier
Art Alexakis, the lead singer for everclear performs at the Rock for PEF at the Farnsworth Park stage, on Sunday, October 4, 2015. Rock for Pef is a benefit concert aim to support and spread the word of the essential benefits that the arts bring to the students.

Poor weather couldn’t stop the music at the second annual Rock4PEF benefit concert Sunday night, although it was enough to force the music show, headlined by Art Alexakis, lead singer of alternative rock band Everclear, inside the community building at Farnsworth Park in Altadena.

The concert was organized by the Pasadena Educational Foundation and benefits music and arts education in Pasadena Unified School District public schools.

Taylor Mathews, season five finalist on “America’s Got Talent,” excited the crowd by playing a mix of crowd favorites and soon-to-be-released songs from his latest album, scheduled for release in spring 2016.

Mathews, a Louisiana native, is no stranger to helping out PEF now that he has arrived in southern California. He performed at last year’s inaugural Rock4PEF concert, headlined by Brian Aubert and Nikki Monninger of Silversun Pickups, and even put on a free, week-long concert tour for all the high schools in the PUSD earlier this year.

Mathews was joined onstage by Stuart Serventi, 13, of Saint Philip the Apostle School, who won a contest to play with Mathews after showing him his singing and guitar skills.

“I just made a video of myself playing and I was the winner [chosen] to come onstage,” Serventi explained.

The pair had played together previously when Mathews joined Serventi for his school’s Fall Fest showcase, according to Serventi.

“This is really wonderful for him. He really loves [performing],” said his mother, Lara Serventi.

Mathews was followed by the winners of last month’s youth Battle of the Bands, also hosted by PEF. The first act was Grey Goo, a six-piece band of young musicians between 8 and 12 years old. The energetic band of current and former Field Elementary students showed great stage presence and excited the crowd with covers of Kendrick Lamar’s “i (Love Myself)” and “Lazy Eye” by the Silversun Pickups, who gave an acoustic performance last year.

The recently formed band looked like seasoned pros, brushing off early technical difficulties before finding their form, and even throwing in guitar and violin solos.

The other youth winners, Not Exactly Monday, then got the audience moving with covers of “Shut Up And Dance” by WALK THE MOON and the Neon Trees’ “Everybody Talks.”

The night’s MC and lead guitarist of the band Sugarcult, Marko DeSantis, pumped up the crowd before the headlining acoustic performance.

“There’s a lot of rock’n’roll in Pasadena and Sierra Madre and Altadena!” DeSantis exclaimed, referring to the wealth of young local bands, as well as to several famous musicians living in the area.

One of those famous locals is of course Art Alexakis himself, an LA native who now lives in the Pasadena area and realizes first-hand the importance of music education.

“Every child should have the opportunity to explore their musical horizons,” Alexakis wrote on the PEF website. “This community event is a powerful way to bring the music community and the community at large together to further this important work.”

As Alexakis took the stage, the children were mostly shuffled out and parents pulled up close to the platform and sang along to Everclear hits in the intimate acoustic set. Alexakis chatted with the audience throughout, and was even able to crowd-source a keyboard effect during “Everything to Everyone” by having the onlookers mimic the song’s opening “ee oo ee oo” keyboard sounds.

DeSantis was able to sum up both the growing tradition and prestige of Rock4PEF, as well as its importance for art education.

“Rock4PEF is the best kept secret in Los Angeles,” he said. “All the other disciplines are important, but the arts are what make life worth living.”

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