The Drowns at 2025 Punk Rock Bowling & Music Festival.
The Drowns - All photos courtesy of Paul Holstein
I will have a lot of stories to write after my epic weekend at the 2025 Punk Rock Bowling and Music Festival in Las Vegas. Normally I would write them in the order that I saw the bands (this year I set a personal record by seeing 54 different sets), but I have to skip ahead this time to my favorite set of the weekend. That is, of course, The Drowns at Backstage Bar & Billiards.
Even before the set, I ran into Andy Drowns at the main festival, and he was kind enough to let me take a few photos, and we talked about how we both do record reviews. In one of my favorite moments of the weekend, when I was walking away, I turned and said, "I hear you have a band too.”
Later that day, I headed over to the Dr. Strange Records booth, where both The Drowns and The Koffin Kats had autograph sessions set up. I had brought a photo that I took at a previous show to have autographed, and they not only signed the photo but also posed for some band photos and gave me a signed flexi-disc of "Black Lung" (after I mentioned that it was my favorite of their songs).
They opened with the same song that they had opened with last year at Punk Rock Bowling, "Black Lung." No complaints, as it's my favorite song, and their energy is just as incredible from the very first note to the mic drop at the end (which you can see in the video below). They continued their 10-song set with "Wolves on the Throne" and "Ketamine and Cola" before getting to their incredible cover of The Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz," "Them Rats," and finally the highly anticipated encore.
I got a sneak peek at the set list when they taped it to the stage, so I was ready to film their encore at just the right time. Anthony from Bullshit Detector joined them on guitar, and artist Chris Shary sang a verse from the crowd when they belted out the Dead Kennedys classic "Nazi Punks F*** Off." Absolutely incredible, and not to be topped for the entire weekend. I already have tickets to see them again when they continue their tour through my hometown of Detroit (playing with The New Bomb Turks, who were also at Punk Rock Bowling this year).
