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We were surprised to learn last week that the Hamtramck Blowout — the local music festival organized by Metro Times from 1998-2015 — is returning this year.
The Detroit News reports that the organizers behind the Hamtramck Labor Day Festival plan to revive the Blowout, set for Friday, March 1 and Saturday, March 2 across multiple venues in and around Hamtramck. The organizers say the event will serve as a fundraiser for the Hamtramck Labor Day Festival, and while a lineup has yet to be announced, they are now accepting artist applications at hamtramckblowout.com.
Metro Times is not involved with this version of the festival, and only learned about it from social media. This came as somewhat of a shock to us because the “Hamtramck Blowout” was originally a Metro Times creation — but we’re always on board to support all things local music.
While the Detroit News reports that Blowout was produced by MT “[for] the bulk of its existence” and originated in 1998 as a fundraiser for the Detroit Music Awards, this isn’t 100% accurate. The organizers of the first annual Blowout, Chris Handyside and Brian Boyle, were both Metro Times employees. (That year the Motor City Music Awards merged with the Metro Times-produced Detroit Music Awards.) In 2004, Metro Times cut ties with the Detroit Music Awards, though we stayed on as a print sponsor and continued to produce Blowout.
The inaugural Blowout lineup featured then-little known acts like Eminem and the White Stripes, and while it got off to a bit of a rocky start, the event grew in popularity over the years. It became known as a way to sample the many under-the-radar artists in Detroit’s fertile music scene — and beat the winter blues by drinking beer and bar-hopping in Hamtramck.
Eventually, the festival spread to venues beyond Hamtramck in Detroit and Ferndale, and was also moved to later in the spring. In 2015, headliners included national and international acts like Andrew W.K., the Black Lips, Alvvays, and Fucked Up.
But it seems like local music fans really want a festival in March — which coincides around spring break time for many colleges — and especially in Hamtramck, which at one time boasted more bars per capita than any other U.S. city. By 2014, a grassroots “Hamtramck Music Festival” emerged to fill the void left by Blowout, raising money for Hamtramck Public Schools. Hamtramck Music Festival moved to the summer in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and returned again in 2022 before organizers apparently decided to call it quits.
All this is to say… we wish nothing but the best for the new Hamtramck Blowout. While we had our own dreams of one day bringing back the Blowout as a Metro Times event, we’re glad an ambitious group has stepped up to hold a music festival in Hamtramck in early March to give local music fans something to look forward to during our long Michigan winters. And if the quality of the booking of the Hamtramck Labor Festival is any indication — New York’s funky ESG and Philly punk rockers the Dead Milkmen drew huge crowds in recent years — we’re excited to see what they do with Blowout. Best of luck!
Wristbands are available for $20 at hamtramckblowout.com.
42 Dugg’s hometown triumph: We have to admit we were a bit nervous about 42 Dugg’s big homecoming concert, held at Little Caesars Arena on Friday. First announced in October shortly after the rapper was released from federal prison on a firearms charge, the event was originally billed as a birthday bash for the 29-year-old, but was postponed less than two weeks before its initially planned Nov. 25 date with no reason given. Then, we got excited again when 2010s Detroit hip-hop heavyweights Doughboyz Cashout and Team Eastside were added to the bill, but braced ourselves as a social media drama unfolded days before the rescheduled date in which it appeared Doughboyz dropped out. In the end, Dugg pulled it off: hip-hop heads packed into Little Caesars Arena for a star-studded show that featured guests including Yo Gotti, Meek Mill, Lil Baby, Lil Durk, Jeezy, GloRilla, Boosie Badazz, Gillie The Kid, Wallo, DeJ Loaf, and more. And in the end, Doughboyz Cashout and Team Eastside both showed up, too. Nice work, Dugg!
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