Detroit Hardcore: Tied Down Festival Day 2
Bad Beat at Tied Down Detroit 2025 - All photos courtesy of Paul Holstein
Day 2 was the day I was waiting for, with the best hardcore band from Detroit (or anywhere else for that matter) on the roster, Bad Beat. Bad Beat had just dropped a new album, "L.P. 2025," and had a slew of new merchandise for sale (I picked up one of their shirts designed to look like a Detroit Lions jersey along with a hat). Jimmy Lawson, the singer for Bad Beat, is also the owner of Edgemen Screenprinting and the man behind the festival. All day we would be hearing bands doing shout-outs to Jimmy. He's another of those guys that is just super nice, and the one time I ran into him in the crowd, he said 'Hi' and remembered me by name.
Combust at Tied Down Detroit 2025 - All photos courtesy of Paul Holstein
For the second day, I also got there early enough to catch the first band. The line was much shorter on Sunday, with nearly everyone buying two-day passes, and checking for wristbands being almost a formality. The first 6 bands (Slice, Face The Pain, Combust, Crush Your Soul, Holy Blade, and Apex Predator) went off without a hitch. Combust, in particular, was closer to the straight up hardcore that I generally listen to versus beatdown (the difference between a mosh pit and the two-step). Every band was great, and they were pretty much on time (we lost maybe 15 minutes overall).
As crazy as everything had been so far, you could still tell that the excitement level went up a notch when Bad Beat did their soundcheck and eventually took the stage. They played the song that I was waiting for, "My Revenge," and several other songs from “L.P. 2025,” as well as older songs. As always, it was short and sweet - over almost as soon as it started. I used to consider myself mainly a fan of Strange Magic (several members of Bad Beat came from Strange Magic), following Bad Beat as an extension of that. The song "My Revenge" put me over the top, where I now consider Bad Beat to be the better of the two bands. They are both fantastic, though, if you love hardcore like I do. Next up would be Vamachara, the secret set, and then Whispers (from Thailand). Until only seconds before they took the stage, I still didn't know who the secret set would be.
Twitchfits at Tied Down Detroit 2025 - All photos courtesy of Paul Holstein
If it's not apparent from the photos, I shoot from the crowd (where most of the photographers stand on the stage). This was the time of day when the crowd was really filling out. It was getting harder and harder to avoid the stage divers and crowd killers, but I was sticking to my plan to stay at least until Judge played. Vamachara was amazing, but the secret set really made my day. The secret set was the band Twitching Tongues playing an all-Misfits set as Twitchfits. There were plenty of classics in the set, and they also played the Michael Graves-era classic "Dig Up Her Bones" by request of Jimmy Lawson from Bad Beat. They had a Twitchfits/Bad Beat T-shirt for sale, but I didn't see them in time to snag one (if anyone can hook me up with an XXL, I'll pay double!).
Whispers (from Thailand) and The Mongoloids (a local band from Lincoln Park, Michigan) were both surprisingly good, and the crowd went absolutely wild for both bands. Judge was great as well, playing nearly the same set that I had seen last year at Punk Rock Bowling, which finished with their classics "New York Crew" and "Warriors" (a Blitz cover). After seeing 54 sets at Punk Rock Bowling the prior weekend and then 21 sets this weekend at Tied Down Detroit, I was completely exhausted. I skipped out on the final three bands, but overall it was a great set of festivals, and I plan to be back at it again next year.
