Concert Review: 2004 Hamtramck Labor Day Festival

I’ve gotta admit, the Hamtramck Labor Day Festival was far cooler than I was expecting. This year’s festival had a full-blown carnival, indie pro wrestling, great food, a really diverse crowd, beer, and a Saturday musical line-up chock full of bands the kids and scenesters are into. This was one quality event, indeed, and the city deserves a ton of credit for putting on a sweet little festival this year.

Of course, the one problem that always seems to arise with any sort of festival is the issue of finding a parking spot. I was fortunate to find one near the Planet Ant Theater, mere blocks away from my destination, but I arrived too late to catch any of A Thousand Times Yes’s set. I did get a chance to chat with vocalist/guitarist Casper Von Hoffman and vocalist/bassist Sparx, who informed me that the band has officially completed writing new material for its forthcoming album (currently being recorded).

A quick walk down the block led me to the festival’s other stage to catch South Normal. The band’s performance was tight enough, and the sound quality was excellent; South Normal’s material, however, seemed a bit lagging, falling solidly within the Nickelback/Godsmack /Default/aping Eddie Vedder generic radio rock department. The band didn’t do a lot to hold my attention, but I do have to say that the band sounded damned good for what it is.

I meandered around the block for a while at that point, checking out all of the food and beverage tents before camping out for a bit of Broadzilla’s set. Try as I might, I can never really find anything supremely positive or negative about this band’s stuff. There’s just something generally appealing about three rocker girls serving as Detroit’s opposite-sex answer to Motorhead, even if the band is best handled in small doses. This set was no different than any other Broadzilla set I’d seen. The rhythm section thumped admirably, Rachel May played cool rock guitar solos and sang loudly, and after about five songs, I walked away perfectly content that I’d gotten just the right amount of Broadzilla in my day.

I actually wandered away from the concert area for a while to check out some of the other attractions the festival had to offer – and by other attractions, I really mean I bolted over to watch a bit of the indie federation pro wrestling matches that were taking place. It looked like the workers were having a tough go of things, as the audience out in the street came right up to ringside (keeping the guys themselves confined to the ring itself); the bad guys seemed to be having a blast getting into it with a few loudmouths in the audience, though.

From there, it was a hop, skip and a jump back over to the stage area to see one of the acts I was most looking forward to, Back in Spades. The band rolled through a few tracks from The Time is Now (a solid take on “Cowboys and Indians” was the highlight) before tossing some new material at the street assembly gathered in front of the stage. I’m very glad to report that the few new songs were very reliant on the concept of extended guitar solos (a songwriting trait that always warms my heart); in all seriousness, though, the guitar riffs on the new stuff were hard-hitting, and the rhythm section was out-of-hand in the best way possible. The band was still able to have a little fun, however, as Stephen Palmer kept doing comical call-and-response bits with the workers at a rib joint that had a stageside tent.

Bang! Bang! followed up with an intense, though low-key set – a fact one of the guitarists actually apologized for with the assessment that the band’s just not meant to be performing during daylight. Frontman Dave Graw was all over the place, though, growling, yelling, and climbing on top of the speaker stacks on either side of the stage (actually going so far as to grab on to a part of the lighting rig and sort of sway out over the street, barely keeping his toes on the speakers). As expected, the peak of the band’s performance came with back-to-back performances of the furious “Problems” and the bewilderingly catchy “1977.”

From there, I strolled over to the giant slide to meet late arrivals Ryan and Big Matt, who were taking in the sights of the wrestling spectacle themselves; the three of us headed back to the concert area in time to catch an incredible performance from Shipwreck Union (a band that harbors a simply nasty-good rhythm section in bassist Scott Krause and drummer Eric Hoegemeyer). The band’s added a second guitarist since the last time I saw them, which led to both good and bad things. The second guitar added a lot of ‘oomph’ to the band’s sound, and it really came in handy when frontman Nick Lucassian sat down to play organ. The downside, however, was that second guitarist Steve Zuccaro’s playing was a bit too frantic for the songs. Zuccaro’s rhythm riffing was fine; his solos, on the other hand, seemed to trample the soulful feeling of a few of the songs. Regardless, the set was still solid, with the band’s underlying influences coming the forefront with the addition of some strong backing vocals by a pair of soul singers.

All three of us were impressed with the set; all three of us were also thirsty (and I myself was quite hungry). The three of us by the Hamtramck Firefighters Booth for a cold beverage in neon colored souvenir cups, while my chubby self grabbed a Polish Kielbasa while I was up and about (thank heaven for cold beer and polish festival food). YUM. We caught most of The Lanternjack’s set from a bench midway between the stages, and other than the fact that Big Matt and I called a cover of Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell” in mid-set, the band was rather tedious, and mediocre at best. I really thought this was a shame, because a few years ago, I really dug Little Beast and Hussy, and I used to think the band slayed live.

After a quick plastic souvenir mug refill stop, the three of us wrangled over to catch another expectedly solid set from The Fags. The band busted out a tight version of “Truly, Truly,” and “Miss Take” sounded great as well. It was frontman John Speck’s birthday, so of course, there was a toast, and a few cold brews were consumed on stage (though the band members were forced to clean up their language on
account of the ‘family event’ atmosphere, a fact that created a few funny moments). The Fags also pulled out a few catchy numbers from the band’s forthcoming full-length release. Once again, Jimmy Paluzzi regaled the crowd with another display of ‘beer drum theater’ – which was made cooler this time around, thanks to the placement of a stage light directly behind Paluzzi’s drum kit. Once Paluzzi poured the beer on his drum, every hit of a drumstick shot beer off the drum and directly into the path of the light, creating a cool visual.

Admittedly, I was actually a bit excited to see Sponge – a band that I absolutely loved for its first two albums. I figured this would be a cool way to close out the night, standing around and singing along to songs I still know every note of. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. Vinnie Dombrowski’s vocal range is basically non-existent nowadays, and while the band backing him was acceptable enough, his cackling and artsy vocal ad-libbing pretty much wrecked any sort of flow the set might have possibly settled into. Ryan and Big Matt made it halfway into the shoddy performance of “Have You Seen Mary?” before calling it a night, but I trekked on bravely to see if there were any redeeming factors left for Sponge. There were actually a few decent moments towards the end of the set, though, as the band’s charged performance of “Plowed” was surprisingly solid (though the band loses a few cool points for following it up by re-performing the song as a ballad directly afterwards). In a real shocker, the best part of the band’s show was a newer track – the unexpectedly catchy “Treat Me Wrong,” spawned from the band’s 2003 release, For All the Drugs in the World. Still, though, I can’t say that having spent an hour watching Sponge play was time well spent in any way.

All of us here at Motor City Rocks send major kudos to the city of Hamtramck for this year’s Labor Day Festival – not just for the bands on Saturday, but for the entire set-up as a whole (as well as for the incredible opportunity for Ryan to find a wicked slick old school beer mug commemorating the Pope’s visit to Hamtramck back in ’87). The festival legitimately had a little bit of something for everyone over the course of the long weekend, and it was great to see such a good turnout, as well. – Gary Blackwell