Hamtramck Blowout / Mid by Midwest Festival

This is the annual double festival that make it so great to live in Detroit.  I won't go in detail on why we have TWO music festivals the same weekend here.  If you are interested - please check the MXMW website here.  The Hamtramck Blowout website is here.

My ears have almost stopped ringing, so I can give everybody a quick update on the annual Hamtramck Blowout/Mid By Midwest Music Festival that will require about a year to recover from.

For those of you whose lives don't revolve around smoke-filled bars, broken guitar strings and blown amps - the Hamtramck Blowout is the annual festival of music in (surprise) Hamtramck where a $15 wristband allows you unlimited access to numerous bars that basically have a different band playing every hour.  The Mid-By-Midwest Festival is the Detroit Cass Corridor equivalent of the Blowout with the added bonus of more scenic neighborhoods to find a parking spot (for only $10).  First of all, I resigned myself to missing about 148 bands, so I could actually only see about 12 or so over the weekend.

 Friday night was spent in Hamtramck at the Holbrook Cafe where the Dragstrippers, Clone Defects and Murder City Wrecks provided a blast of entertainment that is rarely heard in this place.  The highlight of the evening was the Wrecks actually covering the Mutants song "So American".  You know that you've arrived when you're hearing garage punk bands covering songs that were written by other garage bands 20 years ago !!!!

Saturday evening made Friday look a like to the walk in the park.  The evening started off with a show at Hamtramck's newest & coolest record store - Graveyard Records on Campau by Caniff where a new band with a whole bunch of people I knew made their debut.  After this things got a little hectic - that's why you need to know how to get around Detroit.  I managed to see the Blaze Sherman Fury & the Paybacks at the Magic Stick, get over to the Old Miami for the Come Ons and then make the Lager House for Freddy Fortune followed by the Hentchmen. 

There were always a few surprises along the way, not counting the ice and snow that decided to revisit Detroit.  A 4-wheel drive Explorer can always find a parking spot on Cass, even if a few curbs have to jumped (That's what they mean by "No Boundaries").  Strictly speaking, the Lager House is not on Cass, but certain scenic shortcuts can be found when you just have to see the Henchmen.  There is absolutely no time to stop to eat, but somebody else was smart enough to pick up some onion rings somewhere between the Old Miami & the Lager House.  She managed to feed about half the jammed Lager House between Hentchmen songs, so this must be close to some type of miracle.  The entire evening finally ended when the owners of the Lager House chased everybody outside and it was time to slide home on the skating rink known as I-75.