Ground Zero Texas: The Rubble

By the time the crowd gathered on the Lamar Pedestrian Bridge early Sunday morning, after the last official night of Ground Zero Texas stumbled to a close, there were lots of glassy eyes and half-heartedly chugged beers and embarrassed exclamations (“I feel like I’m 16 again!”). Then, the sound of breaking glass, a cheer, and someone screaming something like "Yallsowassed!!!!"

Pissed Jeans had turned in a short, slobbering set at Beerland a few hours earlier, and live, there were even more Jesus Lizard similarities: Korvette got shirtless pretty quickly, made ugly faces, blew his nose, dumped a bottle of water down the back of his pants, and huffed and puffed like a last call drunk. Bassist Randy Huth took the somber Wm. David Sims stance, while maniacal drummer Sean McGuinness and guitarist Bradley Fry egged Korvette on through the massive “Don’t Need Smoke to Make Myself Disappear,” complete with ... a smoke machine! Die Rotzz was a no-show so ubiquitous one-man band King Louie filled in, but the night’s big surprise came from Providence, Rhode Island’s Snake Apartment, whose singer resembled a red-haired Zach Galifianakis with bad tattoos. The rest of the fest was not without cancellations and lineup jigsaws, but that's par for the course.

Beerland doorman/Ground Zero booker Max Dropout, after a few well-deserved days of rest, looks back: "I’ve probably cultivated a solid number of gray hairs on my head over the last month, but I feel good about what we accomplished. I think next year’s follow-up fest is going to flow a lot more smoothly."

What the weekend ultimately illustrated: Austin should and could accommodate something like the Midwest's Blackoutfest or Memphis' Gonerfest, which GZT was modeled after. Dropout's intention was "to bring a handful of people down here to illustrate how decent our climate in this region can be during the winter months. People walked away with a positive attitude about the whole thing, I think ... This was an excellent exercise in improvisation. I personally feel a lot sharper from the whole experience."

Cheers, and here's to next year.