30,31-10-2010 Octoberflame Festival

Venue: Grove of Anaheim (USA)
By: Nina Mende

For three years Tiger Army are organizing Octoberflame now. This year’s Octoberflame was held at Grove of Anaheim on October 30th nd 31st. Three bands are playing per night with Tiger Army headlining both nights. Jack Grisham (of TSOL) & The West Coast Dukes, along with Throw Rag, supported Tiger Army on Night 1 (Saturday). Mad Sin and Hillbilly Casino supported Tiger Army on Night 2. Both nights were sold out.

Day 1:

Doors opened at 6pm. Many fans were waiting in line long before doors opened though. Some of the audience were already dressed up for Halloween. Everybody was excited for tonight’s Octoberflame, eager to see Tiger Army as they hadn’t played shows for a long time. The first band called Throw Rag went on stage at 7pm. The venue was quite crowded by then already. Throw Rag is a four piece punk rock band from the Salton Sea, California. Formed in 1993, Throw Rag has been fronted by Sean Wheeler aka Captain Sean Doe aka Diamond Boss aka Sun Trash since the inception of the band. Other current members of the band are Patrick Bostrom aka Dino aka Dean McQueen on lead guitar, Frank Cronin aka Franco Fontana aka New Rome Emperor on bass, and Chango Von Streicher (The Urban Commando) on drums. In its various incarnations, Throw Rag has been categorized as rockabilly, punk rock, psychobilly and sailor rock. They have blended sounds of traditional rock and roll, country, and surf. The band was dressed up a bit. But they surely had a blast on stage. The singer acted up on stage as if he was either drunk or drugged out, jumping around and swinging his leg, talking to the audience and performing their songs for half an hour. The people enjoyed the music and cheered to them.

Up next was Jack Grisham and the West Coast Dukes. Jack Grisham (born 1961) is an American rock musician, raconteur and political activist. He is the vocalist for the punk band T.S.O.L. (True Sounds of Liberty), which emerged from the 1980s Los Angeles punk rock scene, along with Black Flag, Circle Jerks and Social Distortion. Grisham has also fronted the bands The Joykiller, Tender Fury and Cathedral of Tears. He currently records with T.S.O.L. and Jack Grisham and the West Coast Dukes. They all came on stage in suits. Walked and talked like business men but played rockabilly and country music. Jack Grisham and the West Coast Dukes was slower music. The silence before the storm. The audience still enjoyed it and got ready for Tiger Army to get on stage. Jack talked a lot on stage and also told many jokes, hardly anybody laughed about it though. Jack didn’t care though. Their show lasted for 45 minutes.

Up next was Tiger Army. Everybody’s highlight of the evening. The audience was going nuts already before the band came on stage. Tiger Army is an American psychobilly band that was formed in 1995 in Berkeley, California. As they entered the stage everybody went even crazier. Fast and ass kicking the performance rocked from the very first second until the very end. Tiger Army played all their hits like “Afterworld”, “Rose Of The Devils Garden”, “FTW”, “Never Die”, “Santa Carla Twilight”, “Devil Girl” and many more. They also played a Ramones cover. You could see circle pits in the audience, there was crowd surfing and everybody was singing along to the songs. Nick and Geoff talked a lot to their fans and thanked them a whole lot for all the support. It was an amazing show that everybody enjoyed a lot. After an hour of performance they left the stage but the audience wanted more, so they came back for an encore. Tiger Army is an awesome live band and everybody was excited for the next day.

Day 2:

Halloween. The doors opened about an hour later than the day before and show times were later as well. The three bands of the night were Hillbilly Casino, Mad Sin and Tiger Army. Fans were lined up before doors opened and many people still tried to get tickets at the door. But tonight was sold out as well. Many people were dressed up and there were a lot more Rockabilly / Psychobilly looking people in the audience as well. The first band of the night was Hillbilly Casino. In a town known more for generating pop country ‘hat acts’ and contemporary Christian music, there is a storm brewing. Small independent bands with no management, booking, record labels (or even local media support) are changing the way people think about Nashville Tennessee. One of the leaders of this movement is the Hillbilly Casino, the brain child of Nic Roulette, former singer for Indiana rockabilly powerhouse, “The Blue Moon Boys”. In 2004 Roulette moved to Nashville, where after about a year he eventually found a solid core of top notch players that were interested in really being a band. With bassist Geoff Firebaugh (BR5-49), guitarist Ronnie Crutcher (Tabasko Kat, Brian Setzer’s Nashvillains) and drummer Andrew Dickson (Brian Setzer’s Nashvillains) things really started to come together. What started as nothing more than a revved up rockabilly band playing for tips at Layla’s Bluegrass Inn, on Nashville’s famed Lower Broadway, has turned into a closet industry doing over 200 shows a year. Tonight they played at Octoberflame. Hillbilly Circus went on stage and got the audience to go along from the very first second on. Awesomely catchy music and a great stage performance made time fly. The singer jumped around on stage, talked to the audience and hailed beer. The audience loved them and they loved the audience. Too bad they only got to play for 30 minutes.

Up next was Mad Sin. Mad Sin is an influential German psychobilly group that began in 1987. As they went on the audience went insane. Amazing to see how a German band is loved by a Californian audience. They went insane. There were several moshpits in the audience, crowd surfing and many people shouted along. The cheering after each song was incredible. Mad Sin played all their hits, thanking the audience and asking them to go even crazier. Said and done. Mad Sin rocked the masses big time. Energetic and powerful the Germans kicked ass on stage. Their 45 minutes show time went by way too fast. The audience asked for encore but didn’t get it.

Because there was another band coming up this Halloween: Tiger Army. Tiger Army came on stage with awesome face paint. The audience went even wilder than they went for Mad Sin, shouting and screaming. Tonight Tiger Army played all songs off the album “The Power Of Moonlight” as well as the “Oogie Boogie Song”, “Where The Moss Slowly Grows” and “Hechizo De Amor”. As Geoff asked the audience who had been there for the previous day, about half of the audience shouted. The band talked a lot to the audience and the audience responded with loud cheering. After an hour of show time Tiger Army went off. But the audience wanted more, and again they got more. Twice. Tiger Army played two encores and made this Halloween special to everyone. It was an amazing show nobody will forget. Nick also announced that he will release his solo album in 2011 and tour with it. We all can’t wait.

More photo’s of this event can be found at roseofthedevilsgarden.com

Links:
Throw Rag Official
Jack Loyd Grisam MySpace
Hillbilly Casino MySpace
Mad Sin MySpace
Mad Sin Official