The Best & Worst Of All Possible Buzzfests
This weekend is Buzzfest XXVII in Houston, 94.5 The Buzz's bi-annual all-day throwdown at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. Rocks Off has covered a few of the shows in the past few years, including the May 2010 edition where we took along Buxton's Chris Wise and met Fred Durst before Limp Bizkit's triumphant return to Houston.
Photo by Marc Brubaker We did it all for the nookie.
Hearing thousands of people scream "Break your fucking face tonight" was chilling and, well, fun.
The festival began in 1995 just as the station, then at 107.5 FM on your dial, was beginning its domination of Houston rock radio. That first year the line-up included Bush, Our Lady Peace, Matthew Sweet, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, The Nixons, Face To Face, No Use For a Name, and Phunk Junkeez, who you may remember from their cover of the KISS klassic "I Love It Loud" on their Injected album and the Tommy Boy soundtrack.
In 2001, the festival started being bi-annual, with one in April and one in October, allowing for more saturation of the market for bands. There has always been a local and Texas presensce at the shows, with Los Skarnales, RiverFenix, Electric Touch, and The Hunger making appearances. This Saturday, thelastplaceyoulook, who played our BestFest last month and are nominated in a few HPMA categories, will be opening the main stage.
Rocks Off Sr. and Jr. compiled their dream line-ups from the past 16 years of festivals. It wasn't easy... OK, actually it was pretty easy. Who wouldn't want to see Los Skarnales open for Foo Fighters circa The Colour & the Shape? Duh. Craig Hlavaty
BUZZFEST GOOD
Foo Fighters (1998)
Los Skarnales (1998)
Spacehog (1998, Spring 2001)
Boxcar Racer (Fall 2002)
Everclear (Fall 2002, Fall 2006)
Audioslave (Fall 2005) and/or Chris Cornell (Fall 2007)
Alice In Chains (Fall 2006, Fall 2009)
Smashing Pumpkins (Fall 2007)
Deftones (Spring 2010)
Jane's Addiction (Spring 2011) - Craig Hlavaty
BUZZFEST POP
Buzzfest isn't all grunting, brooding, bellowing and white-guy rapping. Every so often a potent piece of power-pop sneaks onto the stage. There's even been an actual woman or two, if you can believe that.
Matthew Sweet (1995)
Lush (1996)
Poe (1996)
Old 97's (1997)
Abra Moore (1997)
Spacehog
Soul Coughing (1999)
Dexter Freebish (Spring 2001)
Remy Zero (Fall 2001)
OK GO (Fall 2002)
Fountains of Wayne (Fall 2003)
Metric (Spring 2010)
Neon Trees (Fall 2010) - Chris Gray
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