I had so much fun at Dirty Honey that I bought a T-shirt. If you attend a lot of shows you know that you cannot financially sustain a t-shirt a show. $20-$30 is a lot to throw down, even when you know it directly sustains the artists. The wearing of band t-shirts is an incredibly personal thing as it proclaims to the world which music you invest in. That fact alone can say so much about a person. So what exactly made Dirty Honey worth the merch?
Packing in a sold-out show at the Basement East is not an easy task, especially on a Tuesday in January. This band was able to do so in Nashville while touring with only an EP to their name. Right out of the gate, Dirty Honey has been an odds-defying group. The band only just Formed in 2017 in LA after playing a street show together. They spent time in Australia recording their eponymous debut only to be heard on the radio 8 hours after dropping the tunes publicly. Dirty Honey has had a supporting career that takes most bands forever to achieve. They have opened for The Who, and Guns n’ Roses. Adding to that impressive resume, their single “When I’m Gone” debuted on Billboard’s Main Stream Rock chart and hit #1. No unsigned band has ever done that.
The 4-piece band is made up of lead vocals Marc Labelle, John Notto on guitar, bassist Justin Smolian and Corey Coverstone keeping it together on drums. Labelle’s vocals transport you back almost 40 years, which makes it unsurprising that so many fans in the crowd looked like their glory days had been filled with AC/DC concerts and Led Zeppelin records. If you wish 2020 sounded more like 80s hair metal, Dirty Honey is the band for you. Labelle works the stage like the Mad-Hatter leading the heaviest of tea parties. He sustains the same power in his vocals from the opening number to the encore. It’s an impressive skill knowing how difficult that screeching rock falsetto is on the vocal cords. Notto, Smolian, and Coverstone all keep up and drive this high energy set with massive hair flipping and head-banging keeping a devoted crowd on course. This show felt like the rock concerts of old and leaves you wanting more. If the rest of Dirty Honey’s tour goes like this, then the band might solidify themselves in rock history as revivalists for rock’s future.
