Gonna be a heavy-ass weekend in Columbus. Start off with with the sludgy/stoner/’70s-rock Saviours at Ace of Cups on Saturday night (w/ Ramming Speed, Charlie Hustle, and Yeti) and follow it up with the head-bashing triple bill of The Sword, Black Cobra and Mount Carmel at Outland on Liberty on Sunday. Both of these shows are the ONLY Ohio shows on these individual tour itineraries. Take that Cleveland and Cincinnati!
The Sword’s 2010 release, Warp Riders, is an unironic slab of monolithic Sabbath-y riffs as interpreted by a Texas band with early ZZ Top flowing in their bloodstream. At least that’s the way I hear it. This is The Sword’s first appearance in Columbus since a sold-out January 2009 date at the Ravari Room. The Sword is on tour with Kyuss Lives (too bad we couldn’t get THAT bill here) and doing Columbus as a one-off. Not to be outdone, Black Cobra’s latest, Invernal, sounds like Ministry without the industrial noises. Pretty hardcore and in-yer-muthafuckin-face if you ask me (did you?).
After the debacle of actually getting down to Nelsonville from Columbus (accident blocking both lanes on 33-E, some very unprofessional actions of Speedway employees…) I finally arrived about an hour after planned but the night was just starting.
Here’s my photo wrap-up of Friday’s events.
Porch Stage (2nd stage)
Bomba Estereo
Columbus’s own Nick Tolford
George Jones was the headliner today
Now for very many more photos from yesterday’s festival!
The park had these “Eco-Facts” everywhere.
Hex Net
Justin Townes Earle
Whale Zombie from Athens
Some dirty hippies across the road. (I keed I keed…) No I don’t.
George Jones is very old
Donewaiting’s own Joel Oliphint introducing Nick Tolford & Co!
Mount Carmel, also from Columbus
It started raining right before Bomba Estereo from Columbia came on.
No one seemed to mind.
The Growlers from California closed out the night on the Porch Stage.
Mount Carmel has been getting some local love on the message board recently, and the band’s profile is sure to grow before our very eyes with news of the trio’s next record coming out on Siltbreeze โ an especially familiar name in Columbus b/c of Times New Viking, Psychedelic Horseshit and ex-pat Pink Reason, all of whom have releases on the boutique Philly label. (Good work, Columbus.)
Ah, but don’t start the gripefest just yet, shitgaze haters. If you’re not familiar with Mount Carmel, this trio โ Kevin Skubak and brothers Pat and Matthew Reed โ gets compared to Cream whenever I hear their name come up. So you’re more likely to catch them playing with fellow blues-rock lovers The Main Street Gospel than with local Siltbreeze labelmates.
Still, it’s blues-rock under the influence of Siltbreeze’s longtime Ohio affiliate Mike Rep. And maybe it’s not such a big leap for Siltbreeze after all, given TNV’s infatuation with the ’60s. Now Mount Carmel brings us the ’70s. (I know, Cream broke up in ’69. But you get what I mean.)
Anyway, as Pat Reed tells Donewaiting, “We went to Musicol with Mike [Rep] and Adam Smith for a day this summer. They set a bunch of mics and stuff up and we played. We had a real fun time.” Rep and Smith also mixed the album, which Reed says should be around 40 minutes and is due to come out in late February or March on Siltbreeze.
Upcoming Mount Carmel shows in Columbus: 11/6: The Treehouse w/ Brainbow, Val 11/23: Carabar w/ Earthless 12/26: Carabar w/ Nick Tolford and Company
In-the-studio video of the song “Still Listening” after the jump:
