Lafayette, LA 7/30/10
So at roughly 5am, with little to no sleep from the previous night either, we decided to drive straight to Lafayette. Sam powered through. It was such a struggle and I tried to stay awake to mentally and emotionally support his currently life situation, but at 7am everything became harder. We pulled up to 413 General Mouton at about 8am and hobbled into the back door of the house. Kelsey, Spencer, and Stephen were nice enough to leave their backdoor open and have a bunch of dirty strangers come stay at their house. We got woken up by parents and people who we’ve never met before at 11am and it was awesome. Although most times that situation would prove to ackward, everyone was really friendly and understanding of our currently plight of filth and no sleep. Dad jams happened in the other room and we left to get some coffee. Sam had a toaster situation at the coffee shop, granted it was a really hard toaster to use. Help was called in, and after a bit of struggle he finally got the toasted bagel he rightfully deserved.
Now to break here for a second,
I love Lafayette and will make it a point to stop there any chance we get. Its a really awesome town that has many lovable characters, you just want to collect them all. Im just going to break this post down into shootouts and band reviews in a rough chronological order.
Holy Shit, Fuck Yeah Fest.
Michael Gauthier (Goat) – Although he probably didn’t know what he was doing at all, this man has heart and loves him some music. He put together an awesome bill, when everything else fell through for us in Lafayette.
Ian Guirdoz – Also a staple of the Lafayette cast of characters. Although Michael took the stoner approach to organizing the festival (which I can get down with sometimes) Ian took the high strung approach. Both are valid approaches and the conversations I had with both fine gentlemen provided for solid entertainment. All in all, the ying and yang of these two brohammers balances out quite nicely. I wish Ian’s band ImagineIam could’ve played, but a time will soon come where i get to see them.
Max Binet – This guy is awesome, and such a character. Although sometimes a crabby old man on the outside, Max has a ton of heart for supporting music and I know deep down he’s a big sludge metal teddy bear. Great person, and musician. i’ll get to his cast of characters/band mates in a second.
Bands!!!!!!
- Honeypillow – There couldn’t have been a better opening band for the whole festival. These guys make cassia jams so hard, it just pulls at my heart because it hits so close to home. i’ve had many nights of making music very similar to what they do, and having a blast with friends while doing it. I would say they are a cross between Tenacious D and the Unicorns with a very deadpan approach.
- Female Demand – I’ve known Bradley and Jon for a while now, and have seen over a handful of shows. I will always appreciate what these guys are going for, but this set was by far the best I’ve seen from them. They started the set off with two new songs that we’re pretty mind-blowing. Their opening had Bradley rocking the shit out of the maraca and Jon screaming backups, two things which I’ve never seen from either member. After seeing that set, i am really excited to hear what these guys have in store for the future.
- Gull – As Nate set up his equipment, I got the feeling more and more that he was going to be really awesome. Everything about his set up (fur coated kickdrum, tribal mask with mic inside) really fit his personality. While talking with him after his set, it all really made sense. Gull rocks more instruments at once than most people approach in a lifetime. He sings warm vocals, while taping guitar with one hand and playing the drums with the other. It really is a sight to see, and I highly recommend checking him out any chance you can get. Nate and his tourmate were both really kind people and I hope we can run into them sometime again.
- Caddywhompus vs Zorch -
Sidebar: We have known Caddywhompus for sometime now as well. I love these guys, really and truly. I think Sean and Chris are some of kindest people and amazing musicians. I have the utmost respect for both of them and know Caddy will be always doing great things.
So we had the idea of trading off songs and doing a versus set. With most bands we wouldn’t ever be into this sort of thing, but I knew it would work well with Caddywhompus. To be totally honest I was a little nervous about the whole thing before we started since I would consider Caddywhompus to be one of the better bands we’ve shared the stage with. Once we started though I couldn’t have had a better time. It was the most fun I’ve had playing any show in a long time. Trading off songs and just feeding off of the energy of the crowd and our friends will go down as a highlight of this tour. In total I think our combined set was about an hour and fifteen minutes of brain explosion. Our last songs were bridged with a Caddywhompus/Zorch noise jam and it worked beautifully. A video of this may or may not be posted in the future.
- B L A C K I E- Ok, we’re doing this short tour with Michael and I had heard his music on the internet and just knew deep down that he would be awesome live. We had to miss him in Houston so this was the first time i had seen him do his thing. Let me tell you this. B L A C K I E G O E S H A R D. i haven’t seen someone put that much passion and heart into a fifteen minute set in a really long time. The only way to really experience it is to see him do it live. Its irresistible to feed off the energy of his performance and by the end of his set the crowd had broken into a chaotic mess of a dance party.
Michael LaCour might be a personal hero of mine, kind and quiet on the outside, once this man hits the stage he doesn’t hold anything back.
- Wildfires- They might be my favorite band in whatever convoluted metal genre you can come up with. I don’t know my subcategories of norwegian black metal as well as you know… metal guys, but this band satisfies every need I have in my heart for heavy music. After B L A C K I E had worked up the crowd once Wildfires started total mayhem erupted. At one point someone made a running jump off the back of a couch, landed with his feet on another guys shoulders and propelled his face into the ground. it was one of the craziest things I’ve seen go down at a house show ever.
Someone lost a tooth, and all in all it was an amazing set.
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It was super awesome just hanging out one the porch of the house with some of my favorite musicians, and we gathered a strong crew to go eat Thai food. The waitress made fun of everyone for being pansy’s and said the “balding one” had sweat the most. After Thai we went back to the “Commune.”
This is an awesome little spot in Lafayette that makes me feel like we went camping in cottages. Big thanks to our friend John from Wildfires for letting us stay by house, and as a group we dispersed into a plethora of houses around the commune.
All in all, Lafayette… A+
