ARLINGTON, Texas—In between a hand-painted, crying heart and the used CDs section of Growl Records, a crowd of more than 100 people moshed and cheered as distorted guitars rang through the speaker stacks in front of them.
While others were out buying last-minute bouquets and chocolates, the punks and metal-heads of DFW were out celebrating Valentine’s Day eve their own way.
Halfwit headlines concert
Football Team Creative and local band Halfwit’s Bloody Valentine show was held on Feb. 13 at Growl Records. Halfwit headlined the Valentine’s Day themed concert with bands Rekt, Usiris and Cloudvase, playing a mix of grunge, post-metal and self-described sludgegaze that provided a gritty alternative to the loving holiday.
“I think it’s fun to do holiday shows because they’re just a really good thing to do,” Halfwit frontman David Groves said. “We started the band up again, got a new lineup going and we were prospecting that we were going to come back in February. And at the time, I was like, ‘Well, if we’re going to come back in February, we should do a Valentine’s Day show.’”
The concert drew in a community of local music fans and college students that packed the hole-in-the-wall venue. Fans in Halfwit T-shirts pushed toward the front rows, headbanging and jumping to the beat.
Respectful moshing
Mosh pits formed during the heavier songs from Usiris and Halfwit, while the melodic, guitar-driven tones of Cloudvase and the dense riffs of Rekt provided breaks from the chaos on the floor.
“I love smaller venues where you can feel the bass in your soul,” University of Texas at Arlington student Aisling Summerlin said. “Like, I love it. That’s my favorite [expletive deleted]. And everyone’s been [expletive deleted] nice. The moshing has been all respectful.”
The bands’ energies fed off the audience, elevating the crowd’s excitement and using it to decide their next move. Groves jumped around the stage during instrumentals, interplaying with the other guitarist and drummer as he churned out solos. The intensity of the show even led to Usiris’ drummer to break off chunks of the cymbals, eventually gifting the shards to a delighted fan.
‘Wow, I love local music’
“I want [the crowd] to feel excited and I want them to feel anticipatory for the next thing,” Football Team Director of Membership Annemarie Van Zelfden said before the show. “I want them to leave being like, ‘Wow, I love local music. Local shows is where it’s at.’ And I think that they are.”
Bloody Valentine’s theme saw guests in a mix of bright reds and deep blacks. Attendees gathered outside between sets to take commemorative photos inside a large, cardboard heart display, posing with a rose in front of Growl’s front window.
Football Team members handed out heart-shaped lollipops and talked at park benches, while others shared cigarettes, ate pizza and eagerly waited for the next band to start tuning their guitars.
“We attract a lot of really wonderful souls, really creative souls, and everybody just gets along really well,” Van Zelfden said. “And the way that they bring it together and the ideas that they are able to produce is just really beautiful. It is everybody coming together that makes everything happen.”