Militarie Gun at Dirty Dungarees Encapsulates Columbus

Only one of the three televisions behind the bar were on at Summit Music Hall Saturday night in Columbus. A screen that normally circled through upcoming events like the weekly bluegrass meetup and standup comedy workshop had on game seven of the World Series.

I asked the bartender who he wanted to win and I created an animated visceral reaction when he responded with the team I didn’t want to win. It was hard to make out what he said after that because its hard to keep your voice loud enough for a consistent period of time in the middle of a rave. 

Smoke billowed out of a machine near the stage as a single source of light shined above the group of people nearly breaking double-digits, somewhere near the end of the nine o’clock hour. I didn’t plan on going to a rave, but Crunchwerks’ delicious, gourmet, Crunchwrap supremes called my name. 

It was an environment you needed to share with someone else and for me and my friend, who we’ll call “Ryan” for this story, it was our wives. Ryan’s wife questioned if it was really a rave with such few people, but I reminded them both that a rave is not a number of people but a feeling. 

The bar shook from the bass as the Crunchwerks employee walked into the bar with our loaded tots and Crunchwraps. Less than an hour prior, we stood in a half laundromat, half music venue to see Militarie Gun play a sold-out show.

What does a rave and greatly improved Taco Bell food have to do with a hardcore show? It’s all connected and Columbus is the thread that holds it together. Outsiders see it as either a cow town, a flyover city or The Ohio State University. None of that is right, kinda. Columbus is whatever people make it. The capital city is a transplant city, and with that comes a sense of individuality. 

Nothing represents that better than Dirty Dungarees. Saturday was my first time at the venue but right away it speaks to you. It tells you that its a blank canvas made what it is by its inhabitants. Dirty Dungarees is everything a Promowest venue is not. It has personality and isn’t afraid to show its scars. It looks and feels like a concert was played in it before that night. 

We sat in a small booth an hour and a half before the show, so we could get drinks and chat. Written on the wall next to us was “Fred Durst is Daddy,” one of thousands of pieces of beautiful musings etched into its personality. Another personal favorite was a sticker that said “Gay as in F*** You.” 

That sticker tells the story of Dirty Dungarees. It is simultaneously a safe space to be exactly who you are, unapologetically, and also a dangerous place if you hate a mosh pit. The ceiling tells stories with missed drop ceiling tiles, and Militarie Gun, Liquid Mike and Public Opinion added another few paragraphs to the building’s long history.

Truth be told, part of the draw of this show was the idea that Militarie Gun, a band on the rise, would come play at it simply because of the amount of people it can hold. Dirty Dungarees sold out with 280 people in attendance. Militarie Gun’s opened for bands like Scowl, Mannequin Pussy and Knocked Loose. It feels like their stock is on the rise, so this show felt like the last small venue headlining tour for the band from Los Angeles. 

Personally, Dirty Dungarees itself has been in my mind since I learned about it seeing Soul Glow at Ace of Cups. My biggest concert regret is not realizing that Soul Glo played another set across the street at Dirty Dungarees. That was the night I found out it existed and to be honest, the place intimidates me. 

I am on the wrong side of 30, and nearly at the end of that decade. That is not to say that older folks don’t mosh or some other cliche joke about how my back will hurt the next day. I did not mosh when I was in my teens or twenties either. It just isn’t my definition of a good time. I am one of the nameless hundreds with my eyes closed, bobbing my head, mumbling the lyrics I think I know and screaming the ones I know for sure. 

Saturday’s show is that it was more tame than I imagined. Maybe I built the spot up in my head over the last couple of years but I do not think that is the case. The real reason is that its a crowd that was full of me, with a few exceptions. Another friend, we’ll call him “Ray” for article purposes, gave the inside scoop that one of his friends who is part of the strong hardcore family that calls Dirty Dungarees home did not recognize a lot of people in the crowd.

Militarie Gun brought folks out to the show who likely have not been to the venue before either, and that is great for the venue. Sure, sometimes its tough to find a sightline through the walls between venue and laundromat. Also, there is no stage, so if the band is shorter the concert is watching a lot of hands up in the air.

With that said, if the crowd had any sense of romance or pride in their city, they loved Dirty Dungarees. 

My vantage point came from standing on a booth’s bench, leaning against a small corner that separated the few tables from the worn down, wooden, general admission venue floor. There was no huge guy wearing a yellow security shirt running over and scowling at me until I stepped down. No one cared, except for the few people who did the same thing as me.

Public Opinion started the fun. The punk band from Denver, Colorado opened with tracks from their new EP “Perpetual Motion Machine,” their first release on SideOneDummy Records. They play good and catchy punk tracks that I enjoyed. The crowd stood there politely during the set that included the occasional comment about playing in a laundromat and their experience playing in the area. 

Think The Bronx, but with less yelling. It was a great way to get the night going, honestly. 

Michigan’s own Liquid Mike was next. A more straight up rock band, with hints of trumpet, Liquid Mike self-released “Hell Is An Airport” in September and brought songs from it to the floor of Dirty Dungarees. Listen to their albums and there is usually more happening in terms of added sound effects like on their single “AT&T,” but the stripped down laundromat version was still great.

At one point, technical difficulties held up the lead singer and trumpet player, so the bassist stepped up to the microphone. After he claimed it was his first time talking into the microphone, he asked the crowd about stuff they’ve recently seen on Facebook Marketplace, got into a one-on-one conversation with a concertgoer about who was funnier and then asked an interesting question to the group.

Before I share the question, the most disturbing thing about it is not the question itself but how quickly people seemed to have an answer ready for said question. He wanted to know which Taco Bell menu item the crowd would make love to. 

The speed and number of responses was unsettling. One person said a Dorito shell taco (Doritos locos taco, for the uninitiated to the menu) and the bassist gave constructive criticism about getting cut. 

After that valuable advice, Liquid Mike continued their set that was not as hard as Public Opinion and Militarie Gun, but was welcome and enjoyable all the same. 

Militarie Gun closed the night out and started with “B A D I D E A,” the opening track on their new release “God Save The Gun.” It is the hardest track on the new album that slightly strays away from their previous more hardcore releases. It was the perfect song to start the night and it did immediately.

A fan jumped from a table on the laundromat side through a space in the wall to get crowdsurfing and the pit going. Next to that area, on a column that helps create the space, is a warning to not hit it too hard because it will break.

For the entirety of the 17-track set, the crowd tightly packed group on the venue side of the house moved almost as a single unit. Of those tracks, 10 came from the new album and they threw in “Pressure Cooker,” a track they made alongside Dazy. 

Throughout the set, lead singer and founder of the band Ian Shelton referenced back to Dirty Dungarees’ whimsical setup. Before “God Owes Me Money,” he asked the crowd if anyone had any trauma related to religion before he answered his own question.

“There’s a 100% return rate if you went to a show in a laundromat.”

Although the new album had heavy themes like religion and suicide, it is a fantastic record that transfers over well from recording to live. Although a few longer tenured fans liked Militarie Gun’s older stuff more, “God Save The Gun” is an LP that can and will reach people. 

None of that conversation mattered to folks in the pit. That first crowd surfer of the night kicked in a ceiling tile and the bar separating tiles came halfway down with it. As an employee of the place walked up to fix it, the fans did it themselves before they ever had to get in the fold. 

Even though Dirty Dungarees is known for physicality, it also brings people together better than any venue I have visited in Columbus. When you go to Kemba, A&R or the Newport, you go in and leave as an individual. At Dirty Dungarees, it melds people together, if you let it. 

Militarie Gun played six other tracks from their other releases, but I was hoping they would play my favorite track “Thought You Were Waving,” a deeply emotional song about hidden depression and not seeing when someone is reaching for help. 

It is not a mosh pit song, but the crowd was sending their hands back and forth throughout, at the band’s request. 

“Hanging off a cliff
So you reach for my hand
You keep giving signals
That I don’t understand
I froze, I froze, I froze”

The set ended with “B A D I D E A” again, the first time I have seen a show start and end with the same song. Or at least the first time I can remember. It makes sense for the tone of the song. It ended the show on a high note, the way it should be.

After the show, Shelton and Militarie Gun hung around the laundromat and talked with fans at the merch table, took pictures and there was probably an autograph or two somewhere. We chatted about coming to Columbus, their new album and how playing at Dirty Dungarees was an experience. 

I will go back for another show at the venue, but even if Militarie Gun’s crowd might have included a good chunk of first timers like me, that is what the city is about – individuals finding their way. Seeing an entertaining set at a venue with a pulse is a great way to go on the journey.

Back on Summit, as we waited longer than expected to cash out, the rave’s quantity matched its quality of ravers. I finished my homemade ginger ale, the bar’s speciality, and headed home.

Another normal night in Columbus.