Fort Worth Rock Assembly
Sept. 2-4, The Where House, 2510 Hemphill St., Fort Worth
Normally, it's a hard choice to make as to which show to go to on a given weekend. Funkytown is chock-full of good places to hear great music, and you just can't go to all of them. But last weekend, there was only one place that a local music freak like myself would want to be. We're talking the Fort Worth Rock Assembly at The Where House on Hemphill.
Goodwin frontman and radio personality Tony Diaz hatched of the idea of a music festival in the Fort months ago, but he wanted to do something a little different. Our city is known for its terrific original rock bands, and that's something to brag about. But talk to any of these guys and they will tell you they're heavily influenced by classic rock in one way or another. So Tony's idea was to have a tribute concert. Each band would be assigned a classic rock act to cover, along with playing some of their originals.
The idea took off, and this turned into a three-day event with six bands playing each day. Some of the biggest names in local music showed up to pay tribute to those that came before them. On Day 1, we had the Demigs covering the Beatles, Lannie Flowers covering Def Leppard, My Wooden Leg covering Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Transistor Tramps covering Judas Priest, Goodwin covering Van Halen and Pablo and the Hemphill 7 covering Thin Lizzy.
Day 2 brought us the Neptune Locals as ZZ Top, Sally Majestic as Led Zeppelin, the Dangits as Deep Purple, Here Holy Spain as AC/DC, Vorvon as the Who, and the Me Thinks as Pink Floyd.
Day 3 finished up with the Red 100's doing Aerosmith, War Party covering Motörhead, Jefferson Colby as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, RTB2 doing a two-man version of the Rolling Stones, the Quaker City Night Hawks performing Kiss songs while wearing cowboy hats, and the Hanna Barbarians went all out in '70s glitter-rock garb while covering T. Rex.
One of the things that makes The Where House such a great place is that it has multiple rooms and outdoor areas. Between sets, you are free to roam the grounds. There is always a place to hang out and people-watch, or talk about the last band (or to the last band). Unfortunately, that makes it easy to miss some great moments, like when Toadies frontman Todd Lewis performed with Here Holy Spain and I was out in the courtyard. Even though you can hear the music throughout the complex, it pays to watch the Twitter feeds at an event like this.
Overall, the show was an epic success, though there were a few minor setbacks. Originally, there was supposed to be streaming video via U Stream, but the venue lacked a capable Internet connection. Since HD video was shot of the performance, it will be made available at a later date (check the Fort Worth Rock Assembly Facebook page for details). And Sunday, the air conditioning stopped working part way through the show. But with the enthusiastic response from the bands and the audience, there will be another show next year.
"I wanna analyze a bit," said an exhausted Tony Diaz between acts, "There's some things we did really, really right, and there's some things wrong. Hopefully, we can do it again next year, around this time." He suggested that if the Ridglea Theater is open, that would be an amazing space for it -- "they have air conditioning that works all of the time."
Overall, Diaz was pleased with the response to the classic-rock tribute idea.
"This city completely embraced this event and made it their own."
