For the third year in a row, Houston's Bad Ass Weekend, a three-day festival focusing on all different types of metal and punk music, lived up to its name. The last couple of days leading up to the festival were filled with a few last minute band cancellations due to weather and unfortunate run-ins with law enforcement, but nothing enough to derail the festival.
Organized by founders JC Newton and Jaron Sayers, BAW was spread across Fitzgerald's, Walters, Mango's, Rudyard's and Black Barbie. In the week leading up to the festival, the founders warned people on Facebook to arrive early to the smaller venues because they would fill up, but the weekend turned out to be more successful than anticipated as Fitzgerald's ended up selling out on Saturday night.
The weekend started off focusing on punk, with Fitzgerald's hosting a wide array of hardcore and crust-punk bands. Government Issue, the influential '80s D.C. band playing a handful of one-off reunion shows, led the hardcore acts upstairs. They sounded good, but their age showed in singer John Stabb's "dad" jokes and more than a few false starts to songs. While they did a good job, the younger local acts stole the show.
Houston's Common Ignorance was the first band to get a real pit started Friday.Houston's Common Ignorance played a fiery set early in the night and were the first band to really open a pit in the space. Following that, hometown heroes Back to Back came on and destroyed the room. Singer Chaney Lim seemed more hostile than usual, stalking the stage and playing with an intensity that showed why they remain one of the best current bands in Houston.
Downstairs Friday night at Fitzgerald's was filled with highlights early in the night like Gasmiasma, a brutal New Orleans band containing members of Down and Eyehategod. The big draw was the reunited '90s hardcore act Catharsis, who leveled the crowd with their intensity. Singer Brian D told some interesting stories throughout the set, indicating that the last time Catharsis played Houston they had to sneak out of town in the middle of the night to run from the police, who apparently had them pegged for attempted homicide.
But none of Friday's sets at Fitzgerald's matched the intensity of the late-night shows Friday night at Mango's. The smaller, soon-to-be-gone venue helped the environment by crafting a crowded, frenzied atmosphere not present at the larger Fitzgerald's Friday night. Two bands from Pittsburgh stole this show, using gimmicks that enhanced their sets instead of becoming distractions from them. Drug Lust came out wearing balaclavas, a shtick that ran the risk of being lame, but their music more than made up for it as they stirred up an intense pit.
Following them was Eel, who were simply batshit insane. Their songs were as energetic, if not more than the rest of the bands, and they added to that with one of the stranger sights of the night. One member took a handheld buzzsaw to a mike stand, angling it so that it shot out sparks into the crowd throughout the set. It was reckless and likely dangerous, but also made for the most exciting set of the weekend.
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