Another week night show in downtown Austin, Texas at The Dirty Dog on 6th St. Nothing wrong with this. In fact, this is everything great with the music scene in Austin. A wide and varied assortment of venues, clubs, bars, and event centers only matched by the diversity of the music played in those spots, it is great to have a choice of live music all week long.
The Dirty Dog (https://dirtydogbar.com/) sells itself as an 'extreme sports bar'. It is. It is extreme. They have sports on many different screens. And it's a bar. BAM! There you go. Truthfully there is nothing more awesome than watching some bad ass games on a TV, at a bar, with some kick ass live music in the background. Sharing this moment with my girlfriend during the NBA Eastern Conference Finals only evoked the comment "I didn't know they had TV's!" Believe me people, they do and it is a cool place.
Speaking with the club manager Ben, makes me more excited for the future of The Dirty Dog and the live music scene down on 6th. Only good things and opportunities to come.
The show review I am dropping on you now is from three local metal bands with two headliners from a road show. This show was simply lined up perfectly. From the opening act to the headliner. Exciting and great music. Just awesome stuff from Come and Take It Productions (http://www.comeandtakeitproductions.com/).
Before the Darkening (
https://www.facebook.com/BeforeTheDarkening) opened up the evening like they were headlining the night. The nice thing is there was a fairly decent crowd on this particular night to show the love. Much credit to these guys for knowing there place on the roster and come out guns blazing. The lead singer acknowledged that they didn't have much time and these guys just flew right into it.
Before the Darkening is a new band in Austin, TX that is currently working on their debut EP. With the seriousness these guys took to their live performance as well as the friendly attitude towards the fans off stage, things look bright for
Before the Darkening. I would for love them to have some merch at the next show and give the crowd something to hang on to. The energetic performance, from a constantly smiling lead singer, was the perfect start up for the whole night!
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Fear Control (
https://www.facebook.com/FearControl) came up on the stage next. With an energetic sound check, here is another band that jumped on it like it WAS their business! Awesome job here with the performance all around.
Fear Control actually made a 'show' of the stage time. With a couple of light boxes for the guitarist and drummer using for effect and lead singer/guitarist that more than held his own. The crowd ate this shit up! Getting a mosh pit started this early in the night with the ever growing crowd, only proved that
Fear Control knew how to take control. Great metal, great vocals and 'piss off' attitude had
Fear Control owning the stage for their designated set time.
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Heroinme (
https://www.facebook.com/heroinmeATX) was the last of the local bands to mount the stage. Very much the same style of metal as the previous 2 bands, but some how intangibly different. Another lead singer with an audience interactive persona. With the crowd pretty much at capacity,
Heroinme, took advantage of this poured out a ton of energy into the crowd. Working everyone up into a sweaty mosh pit, I damn near got put on the floor during this set - camera and all! No question about the love the audience gave back. As proof, I was totally unable to get near these guys after their set to even say hello. Just some more DAMN good metal from the ATX!
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Here is a brief interlude before I get to the band
I came to see. I previously did press for the
Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival (
http://livemusicinaustin.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-rockstar-energy-drink-mayhem.html). I simply could not wrangle myself out of another obligation to get to the Mayhem fest early enough to catch all the bands and get brutally sun burned. Part of the let down was not seeing this next band. So when I heard they were gonna be back in Austin, DAMN STRAIGHT I was going!!!
Butcher Babies (
https://www.facebook.com/ButcherBabiesMusic) are fronted by definitively two of the hottest chicks in rock and metal today. But don't be a tool and think it is a gimmick. They are no joke and the music is just as hard and has more balls then MANY other bands in this same genre. In fact,
Butcher Babies killed it so hard this particular evening the completely fucked up the sound system for Devil You Know!
The crowd totally pushed all the way up to the stage and only broke for the mosh pit that seemed to be going EVERY DAMN SONG! What I thought was brilliant was the Jekyll and Heidi act. Not by both of the femme fatale singers, but by Heidi. She would smile and be cooing to the crowd, bringing them in closer, then launch into the next song or just go off at the peak of the current track with the gutturals and screams. This would totally set off the crowd again. Don't think it was all Heidi as the other singer Carla channels some serious ferocity with vocals through a very tiny frame.
It was unequivocally thrilling to hear the vocals, both the singing and gutturals, performed flawlessly. No synth, no help form the sound board, just kick ass raw, screaming like dudes can't do, vocals! Lets not forget, all the while, the lead guitarist just fluidly moved around onstage. Playing off of the ladies overt sexuality, it my not have been truly noticed by the crowd (pretty damn obvious where all eyes were the whole time), but it was a brilliant performance as a whole.
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Devil You Know (
https://www.facebook.com/Devilyouknowofficial) rounded out the evening with their performance. As I mentioned in the previous paragraphs, I think
Butcher Babies came out and come on so hard, they fucked up some shit in the sound system. Never the less, there was no question this is who the majority of the crowd wanted to see.
Devil You Know really played off the crowd. The lead singer completely kept the audience pulled into the show their whole set. Playing to the ladies in the house, the bearded dudes, and all the rest of us. Cracking jokes about playing for a crowd of white folks actually caused me to spit out my beer when I heard that one.
As for the music, Devil You Know just pounded the shit out of the audience when they weren't chatting it up. Brutal and searing guitar licks, brain pounding bass and drums is just what the crowd ordered. I will say I was horribly disappointed in the vocals of the lead singer. Some serious cringe worthy moments where he was off key. The blog is all about the performance and the responsiveness from the crowd. With this, Devil You Know handed everyone there monies worth in the performance. Not my pick for performance of the evening, and I would be hard pressed to see them again without a Hellified list of bands on the bill.
Laters
So to sum it up, I averaged experiencing just a hair over 2 new bands every 3 weeks, 1 new venue every 2 months. I averaged listening to live music every 10 days and I was at a venue supporting the live music scene better than every 2 weeks as well...and you know what, I did pay to see some of these bands. If I got in for free, I spent my money at the bar, bought a CD or a hat. Better than that most of the shows were FREE.
