Giovannie and the Hired Guns at The Bottleneck- Lawrence, KS (2023-02-23) review

The greatest metal, country-tinged, Tejano, alternative punk-pop, norteño-loving, tuba-blowing band on Earth!

Texas band Giovannie and the Hired Guns made a stop in Lawrence KS at the Bottleneck (the first of three Kansas gigs) on their Tejano Punk Boyz Tour, to play before a solidly full weeknight crowd at the downtown club.

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We haven’t heard too much yet about Jayton, TX-born singer-songwriter Slade Coulter but we get the feeling that will change as word gets further out about this rising country-tinged, West Texas rocker. Coulter started his career while attending Texas Tech University releasing his 2020 debut six-song EP Here We Go Again, and followed up that with full-length, Best of Me, at the end of last year.

His forty-five-minute set surely won over many in the crowd and he and the band have been out on their Quite Alright Tour, both headlining and supporting. Though we didn’t hear that new song that the tour is named after, 2021 single “Hey Mary” packed a strong punch with lyrics, “Girl, you’re never gonna come to your senses If you’re stuck on the fences again”, and Coulter professed his sad closing song, “Take It Out on Me” was the favorite of all he’s written to date.

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Any band that begins their ninety-minute set with the riffs from Pantera’s “Cowboys from Hell” immediately has our attention, and Giovannie and the Hired Guns instantly had the crowd in their hands for the rest of the night. The buzzing rock band melds metal, country. and Tejano music with some punk and power pop and is out supporting third full-length (and first for Warner Music), Tejano Punk Boyz after several previous indie releases.

The band initially formed when front man Giovannie Yanez was working at a pawnshop in the small town of Stephenville, TX and has toured with Classless Act last year, also making a memorable Kansas City appearance at last summer’s Boulevardia Festival that still had people talking.

Yanez’ growling, gravel voice first takes some getting used to, but it fits the melding of those musical genres and represents the street-level storytelling and angst and introspection that Yanez reveals in his lyrics.

The quartet (Yanez- guitar/vocals; his cousin Carlos Villa and Jerrod Flusche- guitars; Alex Trejo -bass; Milton Toles- drums) seemed in sync from the beginning, especially the dual guitarists positioned on each end of the stage, each occasionally stepping atop monitor speakers to cut loose like High and Dry-era Def Lep guitarists Steve Clark and Phil Collen.

2020’s “Always on Your Mind” holds up with any power ballad from Godsmack or Staind and Yanez exposes his emotional vulnerability on “The Letter” singing both in English and Spanish. “Shout” encouraged audience participation on its chorus, and on the darker “Numb” Yanez gives in to admit, “I’ve had enough, thought I should feel something, I’m better off numb”.

The set seemed to really turn the page and hit yet another gear with their cover of Gary Glitter’s stadium anthem “Rock ‘n Roll Part 2” (Glitter is out of jail, so I suppose it’s PC to start hearing this again) as the Hired Guns took out the “Big Brass”- bassist Trejo strapped on a tuba to musically bump the audience into even more of a frenzy.

Fans sung along to the new album’s opening, “Overrated” with Yanez self-depreciating but also slyly enjoying the slight, “I’m such a freak, I love the way she hates it” and their cover of norteño singer Ramon (The King of Accordion) Ayala’s “Tragos Amargos” led into their own breakout hit, a tribute to the musical idol that Yanez (and everyone else in the culture), couldn’t help but listen to while growing up. 2021’s “Ramon Ayala” would go on to be #1 on both the Active Rock Radio Chart and the Alternative Radio Chart, a feat not accomplished in the previous fifteen years.

And after all that, you haven’t heard Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” until you’ve heard Gio and the Guns perform it live- a revved up, pedal to the floor version, punctuated by jagged and swirling guitar riffs, and a percussive back beat, seamlessly inserting the bridge from Guns n’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine”, before returning to end the song with a musical uppercut, causing the crowd to chant for more as the band walked off the stage.

The band returned quickly, beginning the encore by reaching back to 2017 for “Change” and moving into a medley of “Rose Tattoo/An Empty Glass”, to end things this night with the similar sharp Dimebag-style riffs that began the set, and to rave applause.

Sometimes the critics are actually right- after landing on Amazon Music’s 2022 Artists to Watch list and a profile article last October in Rolling Stone, not to mention chart success with their single, “Ramon Ayala”, we can definitely say with Giovannie and the Hired Guns, we’ve seen the best metal, country, Tejano, punk alt-pop, tuba-featured, band on the planet.