When the residents of Columbus, Ohio’s South Hudson neighborhood gather in Dirty Dungaree’s Laundromat on a Thursday night, it’s not to do laundry. They have arrived on this fine, boiling midwestern evening to share fluids (just sweat and a little blood, hopefully) and listen to heavy music.
Local favorites Dance Like The Dead and Salt open the evening not just promptly, but ahead of schedule. The Columbus faithful show out for these groups anywhere they play, But Dirty’s is their well established stomping ground. With rollicking riffs and a relentless pit on the tattered wooden floors of the laundromat, the city’s favorite hardcore groups provide a brief but kinetic preview of what's to come from the marquee acts. Josh Brown of Salt takes good care to shout-out every hardcore group that he and those around him hold close to their hearts here in town, and rightfully so as an evening of these proportions would not have been possible without the coordination and booking of semi-local community cornerstone Hayden Rodriguez of For Your Health fame.
The aforementioned For Your Health take the stage next, sandwiched right in the middle of this tumultuous lineup. They are an ever-changing, growing and expanding project, and they’ve come here to do two things: punish you and answer your prayers. Clad in Catholic priest and nun garb--all black of course--the band drop in with their heaviest riffs of the set, and leave nothing on the table thereafter. Rodriguez approaches the room with a presence that is sure to leave you feeling secure in your beliefs, chief among them that For Your Health are one of the nastiest bands you’ll ever witness. They seamlessly infuse their brand of skramz with sweet noise and technical riffs, and as they continue to relentlessly tour the nation you will absolutely not want to miss them.
Omerta emerges from the washroom where they’ve been tending their merch table, which is really just the counter next to some top-loading washing machines. They represent what will prove to be a brutal opener to the one-two punch of the night’s big-time headliners. They line the sparse brick walls of the tiny live space with their massive stacks of amps and rack gear. America’s self-proclaimed “Most Hated Boyband,” Gustavo Hernandez clutches the mic he implores the crowd to pack in. The bar side of Dirty Dungarees, where the music is played, is almost unimaginably small. Omerta is about to prove that it can be a cathedral, and take the temperature all the way up to broiling. They explode into their set with a rigor that hasn’t been seen yet all night, with all due respect to the previous acts. As the familiar faces of Columbus’s hardcore scene filed out around the end of Salt’s set, the truly dedicated Nu Metal fanatics found themselves densely populated in the laundromat for a band they may never get the chance to see in such an intimate space again. With bodies lined from wall to wall and all the way back to the doors, Hernandez summons a side-to-side pit and gets it, multiple times. As fans sing every word to every song and hang onto every nasty hook, they joyously commune amongst a thrashing energy that doesn't stop for the entirety of Omerta's set. The set peaks when Carson “Big Animal” Pace of the Callous Daoboys commandeers the mic near the last third and joins in on a ferocious bout of vocal accompaniment.
Pace had remained directly on the floor and on the edge of the pit for the duration of Omerta's set. Once the Daoboys take the stage, there is a palpable electricity in the air. Up until now, folks would venture outside for a brief respite from the oven that the venue had become, but as the feature presentation becomes imminent, everyone stays put. Following Omerta’s lead, Pace encourages everyone to gather in, as if there weren't already impetus to do so. Where Omerta filled the stage with their hulking instrumental presence, The Daoboys have brought pure body power to the room with their sheer numbers. They’re almost wall to wall with their members alone, and command the room. They explode into "Fake Dinosaur Bones", and then their relatively new single "Pushing The Pink Envelope" directly after. Nothing halts during their entire set, even down to the snapping hairs of fiddler Amber Christman’s bow. They stop for nothing, and allow no moments of rest. This is just what the doctor ordered, however. As with Omerta, the lovers and purveyors of modern heavy music have crowded here tonight to see a couple of their favorite groups, which by all accounts may never play a venue this small again. Together they bring down the house, and somehow manage to avoid burning it down with the raw fury they unleash upon the city of Columbus through their ripper of a set.
Check out some VHS footage of the show below, courtesy of Capturing Chaos, inc.
