Born Free Texas 26, The Bowl, Yellow Rose Canyon, TX
Everything’s Bigger in Texas
This promising motto also applies to the whopping lineup of a dozen bands scheduled to perform at the fifth Born Free Texas show, an impressive list of bands who, along with the rumbling of big bikes and the clinking of beer bottles, provided the feel good soundtrack for the long weekend at “The Bowl” in Yellow Rose Canyon, near Mount Enterprise - roughly halfway between Houston and Dallas. The Bowl’s a perfect festival venue with open air stages, a flat track oval, a few ponds, camping areas, and Western-style log cabins, plus plenty of space to easily park even the biggest, fully loaded vintage bagger.
But let’s get back to the music: we checked out some of the song titles of this year’s Born Free Texas line up, and what do you know, the amped up mix of rock-country-cow-punk-honky-tonk-rockabilly-folk-fiddle-garage-speed-and-distortion adds up to a perfect round up of the event. Let's go:
The Bowl’s waiting, so tie your sleeping bag, tent and reserve gas to your sissy bar, turn your headlight towards Mt. Enterprise and:
Hit the Gas (The Gotten)
Go Fast (Cody Bolden & The Roadhands)
Slither On (Hickoids)
And then you have arrived after a long slog,
you park your steaming V-twin among all the other vintage clunkers and take your first of many long looks round.
Old Dog (Zach Moulton)
Killer (Ronnie & The Redwoods)
To Hell With the Wagon (Justin Pickard)
There’s the baggered up Panhead, the chopped down K model, bonkers new builds (such as Jenny’s "Best in Show" 74 Shovel „Hoochie Coochie Man“), sky-scraping upsweep pipes and a whole load of mileage-eating workhorses, which translates nicely to
Texas Heaven (Justin Pickard & The Thunderbird Winos)
And while the bands are molesting their instruments, the other attractions in "The Bowl" are waiting:
The Ives Brothers' Wall of Death: Honky Tonk Hellraiser (Cody Bolden)
Tattooing: Wish I'd Have Done It More (Ronnie & The Redwoods)
Cherokee AMCA Swap: Working The Graveyard (Cody Bolden & The Roadhands)
Other highlights of the weekend such as the FXR Tour, the San Diego Customs Performance Show, the Danger Dan art show, the bike build, the Rusty Butcher Hooligan Scramble, and the Faction Moto Ride-In Show can be summed up by this uplifting hymn:
That's the F***ing Dream (Ronnie & The Redwoods)
And there’s always the bar, ready to serve the fuel to sustain a long night of cubic inchin’ crankshaft-vintage-lifter blocks-barn find-banter.
Barstool (Sheyna Gee)
We Drank The Bar (Cody Bolden & The Roadhands)
Last Call (Royal Sons)
Even the hangovers are bigger in Texas, next morning felt more like: Messed Up As I Feel (Greg Strawn)
And when it was time to leave, we found that parting is sweet sorrow:
You're Gonna Miss Me (Hickoids)
Goin’ nowhere (Ronnie & The Redwoods)
Back Down Home (Heath Walker & The Stray Bullets)
See you next year, when they’ll do it all over again:
The Bitch Is Back (Hickoids)