Officially Blown Out

It’s Sunday night and Im sitting on my couch reflecting on Blowout 2014. I ran around three cities getting as many pictures and videos as I could while trying to have fun and say hello to friends. This year they switched it up by having shows in three different cities over four different nights and in turn we switched up the way that we were going to cover the event. Usually we would have booked a lot of interviews with bands, but even when the event was solely in Hamtramck, that was tough. The new format would make it nearly impossible, so we left the weekend open and decided we would try to get as many live videos as we could instead.




Christie and I got to kick off the event together at The Magic Stick on Wednesday night and we saw all sorts of great music including killer sets by Snakewing and Size Queen. In fact, those were the two most rock and roll shows that I caught all weekend. Drew Podgorski kills it on guitar and makes other players look bad. Snakewing got very loud and crazy and I'm pretty sure that Cris Golan ended up in the hospital with a broken toe. I also enjoyed a electronic set from a band called Adele Jazeem, they kicked off the night with some dance tunes and a lot of John Travolta.

My favorite set of the weekend was Tunde Olaniran at The Rust Belt Market. The lighting in there was pretty intense and it went well with his show. I saw Tunde for the first time two years ago and he made my jaw drop then. Somehow no matter how many times I see him perform I still leave with the same shock and amazement. I also loved James Linck's closing set on Saturday night. I expected the space at Union Street to be pretty lame and was disappointed when I heard that James was playing there. But, it ended up being one of my favorites places to see a band all weekend. James played with a full band, the place had great sound, and I totally felt like I was part of an elite group hanging out in some sexy speak easy in the 20s. I'm obsessed with his new track "Lights on Rider Anthem" and he performed it live with Doc Waffles and Eddie Logix that night.

I think that this year's Blowout brought an entirely new set of fans out to see a lot of the bands that we see every weekend. I stopped a lot of people and asked them why they came out, who they came out to see, how they heard about Blowout, and how long they had been coming to the fest. Most of the people I talked to were newbies, so Blowout was a great time to win some new fans. In fact, I caught Destroy This Place open up the night at The Loving Touch on Saturday and the line was so long at the merch table after the show that I couldn't even go over and say "hi" before I had to head across the street to see Alexis. I have no idea how Matthew dances so fierce while he sings so well, but I was glad that I caught their set.

I also enjoyed partying with the Co-Ownaz who had a showcase above Como's on Friday night and I stood in awe at Rachel May as she belted her lungs out with Broadzilla at Small's on Saturday night.
I thought Jax from Flint Eastwood did a great time entertaining the crowd at The Rust Belt on Friday night and Augie and Ko aka The Hardlessons played a great set to a crowd of people that were loving every second of it. My biggest regret was missing The HandGrenades on Friday and Nice Hooves on Thursday, I heard both of those sets were great. (Don't worry, Christie got video of the HG’s.) Christie said the highlights of her weekend were Snakewing and Size Queen at the kickoff, Axe Ripper at The Painted Lady and Zander Michigan at The Library. If you didn't check out his set, you really missed out.

The new format made it harder to see as many bands during Blowout, but it also gave you a lot more bands to choose from. It also seemed like the sets were longer this year, so when you did catch a band you got more than 20 minutes of music. Blowout was a great example of Detroit music at its best. The biggest problem with the festival was picking which good band to see in which city and thats a pretty good problem to have.

We hope all of you had a blast at this year's Blowout. If you didn't catch everyone you wanted to see this year, hopefully we caught a video from their set. You can check out all of our footage from this weekend below.

~S