Article and Photos by: Ommar Ortuvia
Houston, TX — Sunday night: the thought of it being the night before the work week starts always brings a sense of dread and doom, if you will. Knowing that the next morning you are back to the grind and having to battle commuters, traffic, timecards, coworkers with their same mindless questions like “How was your weekend?” or “Why did the QB throw the ball to [insert receiver who dropped the ball]?”…all that makes you want to enjoy the last few hours of the weekend in peace. Well, that is until you hear that Mest, one of the most fun and loved punk bands from the early 2000s, is playing downtown on the last stop of their tour. Forgetting all about the next day’s adult commitments, fans in Houston enjoyed a night of great nostalgic punk at The Secret Group club in East downtown (EaDo).
Chicago’s Mest started in the nineties but rose to prominence in the early 2000s with their relentless touring, accompanying many of the bigger punk and rock acts that were big back then; playing the Vans Warped Tour in 2003, as well as headlining their own nationwide and world tours. The original band broke up in 2006, but singer and founding member Tony Lovato has been carrying the Mest torch throughout the years, still actively touring and putting out albums and singles. Mest’s sound is very easy to become addicted to, with catchy choruses that talk about heartache, love, drinking, having fun, losing your loved ones, and always with a punk edginess that makes it ok to scream the lyrics at the top of your lungs. And for the crowd at the venue, this is exactly what they did – they sang every song, jumped around, lightly moshed, and even stage dived at one point – a reminder of how you used to rock 20 years ago.
After the opening bands, Mest took the stage and attempted to start their set with “Rooftops,” one of their singles from their eponymous 2003 album. I say attempted because about 1 minute into the song, there were some technical difficulties that required the band to stop and wait for a bit. While they were waiting to resolve this issue, they even contemplated performing acoustically, which ultimately was not the case since things got fixed promptly. Afterwards the night carried on seamlessly, belting out memorable hits one after the other from their debut and sophomore studio albums Wasting Time and Destination Unknown. Breaking the nostalgia, Mest then played “When We Were Young” which was released earlier this year on their album Youth. Later came a mix of some of their older and newer tunes, including “Hate You Sober” which is currently on rotation on SiriusXM’s Faction punk channel. “Drawing Board” was next, with the final song being an amalgam of their biggest hit “Cadillac,” Eddie Money’s “Take Me Home Tonight,” The Outfield’s “Your Love,” and Rancid’s “Time Bomb.”
One song that was surprisingly missing from that night’s set was their cover of Modern English’s “I Melt With You,” which was on 2001’s Not Another Teen Movie soundtrack. Nonetheless, the crowd didn’t care as they still had a blast mouthing and bouncing to all the songs that Tony and company played. The band showed genuine care for their fans, by talking with them throughout the night, or receiving drinks from them. At one point the bassist even took a minute to let a fan take selfies while on stage, prompted by his t-shirt which had Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s classic album cover for Return to the 36 Chambers printed on it. As stated before this was the last stop of the tour, with Tony talking about how he had a 27-hour drive back home to see his kids. He also mentioned how he had an upcoming surgery, motioning scissors with his hand while saying “it’s happening, guys.” So as we let Tony get back to his family and snips, we thank him and the band for a tremendously fun night and great tour, and look forward to the next one.