The opening night of the Sound Factory, Joplin's new all-ages venue, was a very successful evening of local music talent.

The show, which was held on Saturday, Feb. 12, hosted eight local bands. Through the course of the evening, over 200 people passed through the doors of the Sound Factory, located at 631 Kentucky Ave. Mark Williams' expectations were better than he had anticipated.

"I think it went better than expected," said Williams, manager of the Sound Factory. "It was probably one of the best shows in a long time."

The first band, the Fresh Prince Reruns, played a short set which included an Operation Ivy cover, some originals, and a Poison cover that was hilariously transformed to pop-punk. Next up was Deeproot, who played an insane, yet short set of crossover hip-hop, hardcore funk.

Parasitehost followed Deeproot with a tight performance of heavy, blues-influenced, alternative rock. After Parasitehost, the Camorra from Springfield played a hard-hitting, combination of synthesized drums, distorted guitars, and powerful vocals.

Joplin's legendary beercore trio, The Backseat Girls, threw a hammering variety of fast songs, including "Colt 45" and a cover of their bandmates' "Last Call."

Last Call started at midnight with some new songs, including "Kelly's Heroes" and "Suckapunch," and were joined on stage by Boz, vocalist of The Backseat Girls, for their hardcore anthem, "Last Call."

Following Last Call was Joplin's veteran acoustic act, VD, who played many of their locally popular songs, which patrons sang along.

The final act was the Barfly, the former singer and guitarist of Yellobean. The Barfly, who is known in some circles as Adam Giebler, played an impressive acoustic set of soulful, bluegrass-influenced songs, including the Yellobean classic, "So She Lays Low," which was dedicated to a former love.

"I think the turnout was good and the people were nice," said Isaiah Smith, bassist for Last Call and a sophomore computer science major at Missouri Southern. "Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves."

The crowd's reaction to the show and the new hangout in Joplin was overwhelming.

"The most impressed person I talked to was Stan Bowman [guitarist of VD]," said Smith. "He said he was totally blown away by the place and never had seen anything like it."

The Sound Factory will be starting "Open Mic Night" on Friday, Feb. 25, where local poets, musicians, and bands can come up, plug in, and do their thing. This gives them a chance to hone their talents before booking a show. If this event is successful, the Sound Factory will continue to have this type of night on a regular basis.

"We have six weeks of shows booked up," said Williams.

Over those six weeks, the Sound Factory will be hosting seven shows, which will feature over 20 different bands from the area and surrounding communities. Many of the bands that performed on opening night, along with some other out-of-town bands, like Lucid, The Midwest Playas, and Momeraths, will be on the schedule, which has been planned up until the end of March.

The next show will be on Saturday, Feb. 26. It will feature the "infamous" Powerstall, along with Last Call, and Joplin's Bastardwrench. "Bastardwrench is a couple of guys I grew up with," said Smith. "They're pretty cool, just a little way-out there."

With the events of the last performance between Powerstall and Last Call, Smith believed there wouldn't be a similar altercation like the Jan. 8 show at the Keystone Lounge, where his good friend, Casey Clarkson, was assaulted unjustly by a drunk and unruly patron.

"Hopefully the crowd chemistry will be O.K. and there will be no more incidents like the prior time we played with them," said Smith.

Flyers for upcoming Sound Factory shows will be posted across campus, along with at Hastings in Joplin.

Further information about upcoming shows can be found at the 420 Productions website at http://drink.to/freedom.

Published by The Chart on 2-18-00.

Article's Posting at the Chart's Website