Even on a rainy Sunday afternoon, the Houston Press Music Awards showcase kept right on rockin'.
More than 50 artists from about as many kinds of music, all of whom call Houston home and were nominated for HPMAs this year, performed at 10 downtown Houston venues, from Houston Pavilions over to Warehouse Live and Lucky's to our new favorite venue Phul Court, a beer garden-like food-truck parking lot a couple of blocks from Toyota Center. Hope they keep that little outdoor stage.
It was all over so quickly, but it's remarkable how much ground we were able to cover. A big thanks to showcase presenting sponsor Yellow Cab and its Hail a Cab Houston app for making transportation run so smoothly.
For example, Rocks Off was able to go from Latin-laced classic rockers Espantapajaros, who kicked out some Kinks licks and a long jam reminiscent of U2's "Bullet the Blue Sky," over to Lucky's Pub, where we watched the Suffers stuff the stage with a sweltering cover of Martha & the Vandellas' "Heat Wave," over to Warehouse Live next door for a few well-placed bars from rapper Doughbeezy, back over to Phul Court, where the Zydeco Dots were just warming up with "Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You."
And that was just the final hour; there were four more just like it. Luckily we had nine writers and four photographers fanned out across the showcase to bring as much of it to you as possible.
Of course we couldn't see everyone, and we almost hate to hear how we missed Nick Greer or Maximus, because that seemed to be all we kept hearing about. But we'll stand by the lovely Caretta Bell and Miss Leslie, the menacing Female Demand, Mike Stinson's rock and roll revival, Electric Attitude and the Journey Agents' four-on-the-floor R&B. Told you it happened pretty fast.
In fact, as we write this late Sunday night, the Dots are still boogieing down and our photographers are right now hard at work on the shots they captured on this busy Sunday afternoon, so in the meantime we thought we'd show you a few of the better pictures team Rocks Off was able to capture with our humble smartphones.
Much more to come all morning long. Very, very soon. We promise to make it worth your while, just like the nominees who played and made it a fine afternoon indeed.
