Chaos In Tejas Music Festival 2013 – Day 4 – Austin, TX

Day four of Chaos. We got back to the sleeping spot in the late night after Los Crudos and Framtid and watching a yuppie puke on the Night Owl bus. I watched as the sky opened up into rain. Hot summer rain. I remember thinking I could travel forever.

 

Never go home again. Exhaustion had caught up with me but it also felt like renewal. We had rode the greyhound all the way from Vegas and had not really slept in 2 weeks. I remembered talking to Martin Crudo and telling him he did right in his lifetime. I remember listening to my travel companion tell me, as we walked, about his inner life and telling this guy things i've never told my best friends. These moments to me are spiritual Anarchism. We lived without fear. The reward was verbal freedom without judgement. I then tried to force sleep so I could see the Final Conflict and Infest show at 11E5 that Sunday night. 

Woke up. Missed the day shows again at Beerland, Holy Mountain and Red 7. Day and night had blurred together. Did laundry at the Lavanderia. More Guisada.

I took the city bus back downtown and started walking to 11E5. We walked down the alley which was at a steep slant behind the venue, and actually came up high enough that when you peeked through the fan vent, could see Austin's own Hatred Surge playing down below. There we met Canadian Punks from Vancouver and we all made a pact that we would be at Distort Fest in Canada this September. 

I actually caught all the bands that evening. Hatred Surge, Strange Factory, and Hoax. I quietly sat on a beam, reflecting and people watching from the back. I stepped out during Mind Eraser for air. And talked to some girls I overheard discussing their first jobs when they moved to Austin. We talked about canvasing jobs that are not what they seem when you sign up. A lot of Austinites including myself went through this right of passage. 

Next was Left For Dead. 1990's Powerviolence still in its prime, Left For Dead was the perfect band to wake up a sleepy Sunday. The 90's in my humble opinion were the best decade of Punk. So any band that I can catch from that time period, I'm excited. Left For Dead put on a really good set. Its always awesome when a band is just as excited as you are to be there. 

Final Conflict is another band that at some point, you had them on a mix tape in the 80's and 90's. In fact I remember one of my closest friends, who passed away recently, loved Final Conflict. So seeing them I imagined how many people have passed who loved them as well. And that I was seeing them for those people. When I think of 80's Punk they come to mind. And especially being from Southern California as well, they were played at every party I went to as a teen. With Ron Martinez on vocals and Shane McLachlan, vocalist of the Grindcore uber-politicized Phobia on bass I reverted to a teenage girl, and even with my brutalized foot, pushed to the front. They sounded just as good as they ever did, and did not let the crowd down one bit. 

I made the decision to stay where I was for Infest as I knew if I went outside I would not be able to get back in. Which was actually the fate of my Road Dog. So I had the right idea in staying put. Or not. Infest have been a Powerviolence staple since the late 80's and like so many other bands playing Chaos this year, have no doubt influenced so many people and set the standard for their genre. I know most of the bands from my town from my generation started playing music because of bands like this. 

I was far away enough from the stage to avoid the pit on account of my foot (it made it this far) yet close enough to, hopefully, get pictures of the band. I noticed there was no pit but just a solid crowd forming. Doubling in size like a tick ready to explode. I was slowly being crowded forward, a solid wall forming behind me. The room was quiet and void of speaking. At least it seemed that way to me as I tend to feel more than observe. A guy behind me says to his friend he just saw them play somewhere else in the country and "it's not so much the pit to worry about, but the people flying at you." So obviously I was beyond excited to see these powerviolence Gods and watch everyone kill each other. Just at that moment they took the stage and everyone began to scream and as the first song began, all hell broke loose. Up to that point, in my 28 years, I never thought I would be scared of getting hurt at a show. A feeling I had not felt since I was 12 in 1997 at my first Punk show at Jerry's pizza in Bakersfield, Ca. The crowd at Infest went insane and I had not felt a collective energy like that in a long time. Like I had mentioned before, this is our Gladiator game. Our snake handling, our jump over the fire. I was swallowed into the wall of angry bodies, a sea of hate and intense jarring movement. Wet humid bodies, stench and breath. No control over where I was or where I could move, I started laughing and somehow shoved my camera into a pocket. Maybe not even mine. It did not matter. I somehow faced backwards and grabbed people, shoving them behind me back tward where my body had left a gap. Human bodies turned into liquid as I swam upstream to air. I came out smiling and laughing and those around me were bloody and covered in sweat and we all laughed together as a small girl said "I lasted exactly 8 seconds." It felt like an eternity.

At this point I watched again from my support Beam. Observing everyone have a moment they will remember forever. A sea. Bending and contorting. Space and time stopping. Nothing mattered but this moment, this weekend. We may not have anarcho-Punk gatherings anymore. We may no longer sleep in mass together in fields and abandoned building at night. But we can devote time and energy to the basic human need of congregation. Pagan rituals of dance and reproduction. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo courtesy of Hardcore Hell 

I found my Road Dog directly at the door. In less that six hours we would be parting ways to separate destinations so we hurried away from the venue. We decided to splurge on a cab with another punk heading in the same direction. And upon arriving at the sleep spot, I decided to stay up since we would have to vacate it in two hours anyway. Hyped like kids at a slumber party, we reenacted the craziest moments of our sojourn. I slept for an hour and we left to catch our greyhounds before the sun came up. I was on my way to the Big Sleazy. New Orleans.

Thus ending the yearly ritual of Chaos in Tejas. Until next year.

            More photos of the show can be seen HERE

-Natalie Leeann.-
Big Wheel Contributor

 

 

 

 

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