LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Heavy Lies The Crown) & More News & Updates From Them!!

Today's post is 100% devoted to Sault Michigan and the Eastern Upper Peninsula (more the latter), including a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, so here's what you should know across the river!

St. Ignace metalcore quartet Heavy Lies The Crown will play a rare local concert on Saturday, August 10th when they return to at 376 North 2nd Street for another "birthday bash"! Early advertising is not calling this the "2nd Street Music Festival" like when they debuted here last August, but this is a publically advertised and attendable outdoor concert despite not being at a formal public concert venue. Last seen in the E.U.P. for a truly public event at last fall's LSSU Battle of the Bands, it is nice to see H.LT.C. rock out for local fans (it's a shame it can't happen way more often), while this will be their first public local gig since Nathan Switzer returned to replace Ted Olson on guitar. Unlike last year's outdoor St. Ignace show, the lineup here is metal-centric, and will also include Ghidora, a "rez metal" quartet from Hannahville outside of Escanaba. Solid group with a melodic and aggressive sound, and it'll be very cool to see them out east for the first time!

Sault Ste. Marie classic metal/hard rock quartet Tarnished (who shared the stage with Heavy Lies The Crown at the LSSU Battle) will play a rare St. Ignace gig outside of the Kewadin Casino umbrella on this night as well, and we'll have more on them this week. The second annual 2nd Street Music Festival(?) is a FREE & ALL AGES event taking place at 7:00 PM. This should be a fun time for fans of original metal in the U.P., weather permitting, so visit the above links for more details on the action next month!

Staying with Heavy Lies The Crown, what have they been up to in the last few weeks? One day after I noted on the SMS on June 14th that they'd been oddly quiet re: how their set opening for Born Of Osiris in Pontiac on May 26th went, they finally started posting content from that night on their Facebook page, including this 10 seconds-long clip of the headliners, a handful of setup photos at The Crofoot, and a "Reel" of them performing. Curiously, it does not appear to be the same stage that Born Of Osiris performed on, and after doing some digging, I learned that The Crofoot has multiple stages/venues in the complex, with H.L.T.C. seemingly playing at The Vernors Room, a smaller bar/lounge. Given the lineup on May 26th, it would seem like bands were playing at multiple stages in The Crofoot with Born Of Osiris and select openers playing in the ballroom proper. It'd be an interesting experience, if nothing else!

The "Reel" (cross-posted from TikTok and unembeddable as always) features singer Brandon West starting a moshpit while very openly not giving a damn, and while we don't hear a ton of the song, the energy levels are good to see! Note that it does appear like there's someone standing at what could be a mixing board or turntable to Jaxon's right, but as the video is (sadly) vertical, we don't get a good look at the person. Brandon had teased earlier this year that H.L.T.C. might be adding a DJ to their lineup, and thanks to photos taken by Aaron Schmidt that the band shared to Facebook on June 19th, we can confirm that recent Exit 808 guest bassist Blaze Beairl was scratching on the turntable in Pontiac! The band hasn't said if Blaze has joined full time in this role (let alone mentioned him by name), but it must have been a thrill for him to learn a very new instrument and join them on the 5 hour drive south! 

Heavy Lies The Crown's next show will take them to Wolverine (90 minutes south of the Soo), where they and the aforementioned Ghidora will join a dozen more Northern Michigan metal bands for this year's Sturgeon River Shred Fest on the July 27th weekend, while they and Ghidora will also rock Escanaba on October 19th for the Fight Breast Cancer With Music charity metal concert. If you're in the Northern Lower or the central U.P., keep these shows in mind for some intense original metal action! Finally, on April 18th (but oddly not plugged publically on social media for another two months), Heavy Lies The Crown released a brand new studio single named "Marble Skin" to major streaming services like Spotify! Running for just 1:40, it's their first song since Nathan came back and Ted left, and while suitably heavy for fans, it seems overly processed in terms of vocal clarity, like they recorded it in a wind tunnel.

It's good to hear some new (if brief) music from H.L.T.C., so check out its YouTube Music copy below, and we'll have much more from them and other Sault Michigan/E.U.P. bands on the site soon! Thanks everyone!!