2 Minutes to Tulsa
The Vanguard & Cain’s Ballroom
March 29 – 31, 2024
A few years back, Swedish old-school metallers Screamer popped into Tulsa, and my band, Blind Oath, took them to Olive Garden. Yes, they wanted and asked for this, and as heavy metal family, we obliged. Bread (in the form of sticks) was broken, laughs were had, and Italian margaritas were slammed. Screamer’s nine-foot-tall drummer, Henrick, vomited immediately after, but he knew he “was family.”
And that story is a micro to heavy metal’s familial macrocosm. Metal is a global family affair, and at 2024’s 2 Minutes To Tulsa Festival, this was beyond apparent.
2 Minutes to Tulsa — named after the classic Iron Maiden track — was dreamt up last year by Tulsa non-profit Horton Records as a Midwestern link in America’s metal fest chain mail. Last year’s success saw this year expanding to two full days and a Sunday brunch, with patrons flying in from Germany, Denmark, Sweden and further-flung expanses like Wichita, Kansas.
Tulsa’s rising teen titans She Hates Me Not kicked off Friday at Vanguard. This band of middle schoolers represents the new blood in Tulsa’s growing metal scene. Arizona’s Intent hit the stage right after, their blistering beatdowns solidifying “thrash” as a dominant theme in this year’s curation.
Blind Oath were next up, and while journalistic integrity prevents me from reviewing myself, I can say that the amount of friends in the crowd, both local and global, made it our favorite set ever. The violet-executioner-hooded musicians of Kentucky’s Savage Master entered the ring after us, corralled by the leather and batcaped banshee wail of lead singer Stacey Savage, before the aforementioned Screamer lifted the crowd up with soaring anthems of divine conquest and positivity.
Florida’s Nasty Savage followed, with frontman Nasty Ronnie reliving his pro wrestler past by slamming his face through a television. Danish thrash masters Artillery burned through a myriad of pummeling underground classics ahead of a secret Cirith Ungol set closing out Friday’s show, in place of Night Demon’s scheduled slot. (Someone had incapacitated Night Demon’s drummer with a gummy bear they failed to mention was medicated by one of Tulsa’s million dispensaries.)
Day two of the festival jumped up square footage to the hallowed halls of Cain’s Ballroom, with many of the touring bands overjoyed to take photos in front of the famous hole Sid Vicious punched in the wall in 1978.
Salt Lake City’s Blood Star opened things up with the formidable voice of Madeline Smith holding white witch court over the distending audience. Bay Area epic speed metallers Hell Fire whipped up the crowd ahead of once-Okies, Omen. Formed in Broken Arrow in the early ‘80s, Omen headed to L.A. to ply their medieval power metal, and Saturday marked founder Kenny Powell’s first show in Oklahoma since. A moment of metal magick happened as Omen’s original drummer, Steve Wittig, took the throne for the first time since 2017.
Power Metal pioneers Jag Panzer commanded the Cain’s stage next, with a surgical cross section of their decades-long discography. Arizona power-thrash icons Flotsam and Jetsam kept things roiling ahead of the weekend’s main attraction: the mighty Cirith Ungol, perhaps the underground metal band in both sonics and personal lore, here to play their first and last Oklahoma show in history. Shortly after releasing last year’s LP The Dark Parade, Cirith Ungol announced 2024 would be the end of them as a live act.
The lights went down, a gong was hit. Ungol was about to rise. But then the crowd heard the intro to Night Demon’s newest record playing over the PA and saw the band take the stage at last after the previous night’s mishap.
Night Demon drummer Brian Wilson had been resurrected from weed death to play a four-song redemption set with his bandmates — two of whom (guitarist Armand Anthony and bassist Jarvis Leatherby) are members of Cirith Ungol, too, with both bands hailing from Ventura, California. The Night Demon crew then swapped out Wilson with Ungol’s legendary drummer Rob Garven and singer Tim Baker as the show transitioned into its legitimately epic closing act.
No head was left unbanged as Cirith Ungol gave the Midwestern throng something many had clamored for since Ungol first demo’d their iconoclastic and American take on the metal sounds erupting from England in the late ‘70s. Less denim and leather, more orc-hide and iron, Ungol had a sound all their own, with one foot in antiquity and the other planted firmly to stab their mythos in the stars.
Sunday’s bangover brunch at Fassler — less an affront to Easter than an exaltation of the familial ties of church — wrapped the festival in a beautiful bow of clinked glasses, group photos and bear hugs. Blind Oath opened the event, with Tanith/Satan guitarist Russ Tippins replacing me on guitar, to sing Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town.” Tanith ripped through a proper set as friends from all corners of the globe gave final salutations, checked Uber arrival times and asked questions over Tulsa airport check-in procedures: a bittersweet end to a weekend so successful that the metal family will, undoubtedly, be back in town next year.
