Audio By Carbonatix
[
{
"name": "GPT - Leaderboard - Inline - Content",
"component": "35519556",
"insertPoint": "5th",
"startingPoint": "3",
"requiredCountToDisplay": "3",
"maxInsertions": 100,
"adList": [
{
"adPreset": "LeaderboardInline"
}
]
}
]
Holy shit, I love the Blowout. I may have only just arrived home (at what I thought was 2 a.m. but what my computer clock is telling me is 3 a.m. – damn) and therefore still be enjoying the memories that are very fresh in my mind, but I think that this year's Blowout is the best festival ever put on anywhere in the world. Ever. Frankly, you can stick your Woodstock up your ass.
Having lived in London for 10 years and traveled extensively, I'm fairly sure that this is a festival that could only happen in Detroit. In London, New York or L.A., the venues wouldn't pull together in this manner and there wouldn't be enough decent local bands to make the thing work. As an Englishman who chose to live here 14 months ago, I truly believe that this is the greatest city in the world, and the Blowout highlights the fact.
As for the Saturday bands, there was too much great stuff going on for my mind and body to compute so, like Thursday, I wound up dashing from venue to venue and seeing 10 minutes of many acts. I did it for you, dear readers, in order to give you as good an overview of the whole evening as is humanly possible. I'll summarise:
The Displays – Refreshingly full of youthful vigor and a scary amount of talent. Nice and noisy, they perhaps herald the return of quality garage rock to the city.
The Ruiners – Like the New York Dolls with a girl backing singer. And the singer lit his pants on fire!
The Sisters Lucas – Angelic voices and a pop / Americana sound. A left-turn in style for the festival, but a welcome one.
Gardens – Like Elvis Costello singing for the Rezillos, only not as good.
They Never Sleep – Psycho punk – singer Mike Hard looks like he wants to kill everyone in the audience. Awesome.
Lighting Love – Bless 'em. The Belmont was full to capacity for their set of songs that wouldn't sound out of place on the Juno soundtrack. Singer Leah Diehl told me that she thinks I'm to blame for the large attendance because of my feature on them in this weeks Metro Times, but she's just being modest.
Magic Shop – Detroit mods.
Gorevette – Nikki Corvette and Amy Gore collide, hence the name. Can you see what they did there? God, I loved their rockabilly covers.
Decibilt – Former members of Forge summon the spirits of Anvil, the Scorpions and Quiet Riot with their metal riffs, catchy choruses and extended guitar solos. Great fun.
Pinkeye with John Sinclair – By this time in the evening, I was pretty much brain dead. Hence, I could appreciate the talent of the individual members of Pinkeye and I could enjoy John Sinclair's poetry, but my mind couldn't handle the stretched out jazz space-jams.
Bluesong – Stoner rock with a '70s kick. Like Bad Company jamming with Kyuss.
The Detroit Cobras – What can I say? They were the Cobras. Great choice of material well played. The ultimate party band and the perfect finale for the festival.
And with that, it was all over. Next year's festival can't come soon enough..though I'll probably be sleeping until then.
