A return to an old favorite with some old friends – The long-standing music festival could definitely see it’s last year but not before hitting a quarter century. We also have Texas faves the Toadies take us out to the ballgame & more.
Edgefest 25 – April 1st – Toyota Stadium – Frisco, Texas
This will take some unpacking: Ok so you know how in America since the early 90’s every major & secondary radio market has their “alternative” station and it’s usually branded an intended buzz word with an “edge” and some are actually called The Edge? Well for over 25 years in Dallas that was the alt station to go along with probably at least another two dozen Edges across the country. And just like those other stations, every Spring/Summer they put together an all-day, Clear Channel friendly mix of whatever payola/promotion comes across the programmers’s desk mixed in with a local promoters folding already happening tours in that city’s tour stop & they call it Edgefest.
I shouldn’t sound so cynical – that would be hypocritical coming from someone like me who’s attended close to half of these shindigs over the past quarter century. It would also be ungrateful as I have fond memories of being a 90’s teen and all the silliness that goes along with being that age in THAT age and Edgefest provided many of soundtrack & hell downright faciliatator to many of my college years adventures.
To illustrate how others must feel the same, The Edge went off the air this year but sister station vowed to get the already-booked Edgfest across the finish line to it’s 25th year.
They always book at least one band that I just can’t seem to miss & this case it was old friends 311 & local buddies the Toadies.
Getting there was a whole other ordeal. Per usual I had spread myself as thin as possible, doing double duty over the weekend at Dallas International Film Festival and Fan Expo Dallas, a comic con that had left early to get here in time to see my dudes from Nebraska.
311
Say what you will, but this band has brought me tons of joy & happiness over the years & continue to do so. I’ve enjoyed a wonderful friendship with their bass player P-Nut since the beginning of this decade & his invitation aren’t one I plan to turn down anytime soon. A fun paired down set to meet the masses and time frame.
Setlist
Beautiful Disaster
Do You Right
All Mixed Up
Freeze Time
Come Original
Homebrew
Amber
Don’t Stay Home
Applied Science
Too Much to Think
Down
Creatures (For a While)
You would think after an insanely long day, dogged with traffic (they closed the toll road getting here) bad weather (a tornado was looming large) & baffling dysfunction at Will Call (don’t get me started) that I would be done right? The only two bands left are not only two of my least fave of the more popular ones of the last 20 years but one being a group I downright loathe.
The Offspring
Sorry (not sorry) to be so partisan here but is there really a worse band that subjected rock radio to more prolonged torture than the Offspring?
I’m so far removed from any demographic that is into this that I literally don’t know one person that would even defend these guys in private.
So much so that I half-expected a collective groan to come over the crowd when they took stage. Now I’m not elitist nor think my opinion or tastes are better than anyone else’s, I’m just explaining the experience but hearing a STADIUM full of people eagerly sing along in unison to some of the most flaccid & just awful pop-rock of the last 25 years that any casual radio listener is bludgeoned with three times a day was weird & unexpected.
It was overwhelming to be embarrassed for so many people at once.
Blink-182
Pretty much the same thing applies here, except I anticipated the fanfare for Blink-182. They’ve never lost that “cool” factor even after (thankfully) losing an original member of three-piece which is difficult to do (even if it was the most annoying of the three). It wasn’t all bad with these guys, Mark Hoppus main singer is pretty cool guy & their drummer is a bad ass despite his poor man’s Tommy Lee schtick.
So what would make me stick around for two bands who’s mere mention of their names make me violent? You guessed it – A girl.
I met this girl at the show & the fact that she was into should have told me all that I needed to know.
Right before them, at an opposite end dueling stage were old friends and Texas treasure The Toadies.
The Toadies
Of course I’ve seen these guys (& used to be girl(s) probably a hundred times since I was a teenager in all their different lineups and one thing remains – they still kick serious ass. Today was no different, playing new stuff off their upcoming new LP, their first full length of new material since 2010’s Play Rock Music.
Setlist
Mexican Hairless
I Come From the Water
Polly Jean
Little Sin
Backslider
Take Me Alive
Rattler’s Revival
Possum Kingdom
Sweetness
Tyler
New Song
We shall see now that the Edge in Dallas is officially gone if they decided to carry on next year with the festival in name only. For sure however, radio station sponsored all day festivals of current young bands with a few old ones thrown in aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
The Toadies Post Rangers show – April 29th – Globe Life Park – Arlington, TX
Well here is an unlikely venue the Toadies can scratch off their list – Globe Life Park or simply Rangers stadium home of the Texas Rangers MLB team. If you were local during the Super Bowl this year you might have seen a commercial advertising the upcoming baseball season for the Rangers featuring Toadies main man Todd Lewis doing a fun piss take on the old staple Take Me Out the Ballgame with Rangers/Texas specific lyrics.
That turned into them actually recording an actual burning kickass version of it, that now has lead to them being added to the Texas Rangers post-concert series during the regular season.
After the Rangers had just defeated rivals the Anaheim Angels, the Toadies brought more good luck by taking the field for a fun post-game concert that naturally included the aforementioned baseball classic. Unless they play here again I can’t imagine a time when they would perform that song again so if you were here you certainly heard it for the first (& possibly) last time live. Unlike the Melvins who also covered the song last year who could threaten to whip their’s out at a moment’s notice. Good times.
Photos –
Roy Turner
Edge Photographers
Mike Brooks
