The Octopus Inks The Blowout Pre-Party!

The Octopus Inks The Blowout Pre-Party!

The 12^th Annual Metro Times Blowout kicked off last night at Detroit's Majestic Complex with an all out frenzy of a party that included all we love about the Blowout with the obscure (Electric Fire Babies), insane (Child Bite), wacky (Gepetto Files (Stirling Belongs Here too)), rock (The Octopus), country, metal, rap (Fluent), emo and indie (Silver Ghost), well we almost had them all covered! This is exactly what the Blowout is all about, looking at a line-up and wondering aloud "who the hell put this together", only to look back at it later that night as your cleansing the stale beer from your system when it all comes together and you realize you just witnessed something that you would never see anywhere else, cept the Blowout! Dr2 slide into the Majestic complex, picked up our passes, then embarked on what can only be described as an annual Detroit Music Family Reunion, constantly running into "that" person you haven't talked to since the last Blowout, way too much fun! Dr2 caught most of the acts last night, missed some too due to the constant handshaking and story telling going down, but from what we did see, there was some downright good music originating from both the Majestic Theater & Magic Stick. Of course we also seen some stuff that we're not quite sure of what it was they were trying to accomplish. Electric Fire Babies and Fluent were this years sacrificial lambs, with the early set times they played to sparsely filled venues while everyone was apparently in the bowl catching up with everyone. Not much into either of these two, the slow smooth rap of Fluent or the twisting knobby computer beep sounds of EFB. Moving between the 2 venues proved difficult about this time as we headed into the Stick to catch the wildly insane antics of Child Bite. These guys are like an out of control metal band with a saxophone! All sporting facial hair of some sort it's a non-stop bash it up party complete with a ghostly Ace Frehley Impersonator. Back to the Theater to catch the wacky antics of the Gepetto Files, which is basically a puppet show done to parodies of certain musical stars with a live band playing behind it who were all dressed in black veil type of clothing topped off with huge Viking hats, horns and all. First time catching this crazy bunch and we must say they pulled off a completely hilarious (if not true) parody of the White Stripes with their own version, The Brown Streaks. Had us on the floor when the MC asked if they weren't from Tennessee! Back to the Stick where we caught what was certainly THEE set of the night from The Octopus. Amazingly catchy hooks with an equally amazing voice from Masha Marjieh, this group had the Stick packed with bouncing heads and raised fists. Rampaging through a twelve song set that included Hemisphere, At Her Feet, and by the time they nailed Medium Cool, The Octopus had us asking each other if this wasn't THEE set of the entire Blowout, yet alone just tonight. We got this band, and they had us hooked, look forward to future sightings of The Octopus! By the way, why can't the Stick put in at least a couple white lights on their stage, the Red Glow gets to be a bit much...... By now the bi-hourly migration through the Majestic Café was taking a toll on us all as each run had us deliberately passing no less than 4 bars each way! Back at the Theater, the group Wrong Number was part way through their set when a magic marker chested singer decided he had enough of his Howdy Dowdy Walmart edition shirt, and slowly proceed to unclothe himself, on sleeve & button at a time, an excruciating process to witness. It didn't take long for long time Detroit Music aficionado and local bad boy Stirling to propel himself on stage to take over the vocal duty; I guess the shirtless guy wasn't as bad as we first thought..... Marcie Bolan's Silver Ghost had the headline slot back at the Stick where those damn red lights were on the verge of setting off an impromptu migraine party. At least that smooth almost hypnotic indie sounding music soothed that issue. Never seen this group before but by the looks of the packed house plenty of you have, it just seemed a bit too slow for a show ending set starting at Midnight. They'll be heading down to that SXSW fest in Austin in a couple weeks so who knows, maybe they'll turn some heads down there for themselves. Outrageous Cherry had the stage and the Blowout Crowd to themselves for at least half there set, was it just us or did these guys seem to play for like 2 hours or something? Not much excitement from this gang either as the night was wearing on while the line to Sgt Pepperoni seemed to keep growing, impeding anyone who dared try to pass (they do have damn good pies). The good news is that the Blowout moves over to its original home for the rest of the weekend starting tonight when things kick into overdrive down Jos Campeau and the rest of the streets of Hamtramck. Look for some much warmer weather this year according to Chuck, so we're expecting some huge fun as Dr2 blows through the rest of the Blowout starting tonight as we descend upon an itinerary that is much a guess as it is a throw of the dice, but we look forward to finally dropping in on Love Meets Lust with a few detours along the way to catch The Decks and the newly beefed up Deastro dude! Be sure to check out the entire Blowout schedule complete with links to the bands right over here at MetroTimes.com. DetroitRockReview.com - The Only Place For Local Music News & Reviews!