“Does anyone have a guitar that is not broken?” came from the stage before the first set even got going. Through the lens of photographer Sam Farias and the words of journalist Jane Renee Farias, Aggro’s opening at Bleakfest Vol 2 on September 13 at the Hawthorne Theater set the tone for a night built on chaos, mishaps, and unfiltered energy.
The show was part of a two-day showcase organized by Bleakhouse, a Portland-based art collective and label known for blending hardcore, industrial, and experimental sounds under the same roof. On their website, Bleakhouse describes the common thread of its roster as “the desire to create and express with an unfettered purpose and camaraderie for each other.”
That camaraderie was easy to pick up on inside the Hawthorne, even when the pit looked hostile from the outside.
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Eight bands filled out a five-hour run: Aggro gave the shaky but loud start, followed by VTB (new EP coming soon), whose heavy distorted sound sat comfortably within the room even if they weren’t strictly a hardcore act.
Impact picked things up with direct, punchy hardcore that forced movement, and Tolls carried it further with raw and angsty drive.
For our guests King Yosef, the venue carried personal weight. He told the crowd the Hawthorne Theater was the first place he saw a show as a teenager. Now fronting an industrial set and running Bleakhouse itself, he spoke about seeing the DIY scene rise and fade in Portland, and about using Bleakfest as a way to connect “the industry on its own terms.”
His set drew from the new album “Spire of Fear.” At one point a stagediver disconnected equipment, forcing his DJ to switch to guitar, but the jagged metallic feel of the performance didn’t lose any strength.
By the time Boltcutter hit the stage, three hours in, the room was already slick with sweat.
Their set included “Shotgun Suckstar” with Misery Whip guesting, while audience members ignored the “NO STAGE DIVING” signs plastered around and kept flying into the crowd. Slime followed, with the expected all-in pileup onstage before everyone spilled back into the pit to swing at each other again.
Misery Whip closed the night, opening with a folk-leaning track from their record “The Right To Live in Peace” before moving into heavier songs like “The Ranch,” which also featured Slime.
Between tracks, they highlighted a benefit fund for Palestinian resistance and urged the audience to connect beyond music. Vocalist Benjamin McClure underlined the collective’s DIY ethos: “Now we’re just doing everything we can do to take this as far as we can go, as far as we could go. No one else is going to give the opportunity to us. So we’re gonna make it for ourselves.”
The spirit of that remark fits Bleakhouse’s wider work. Alongside organizing shows, the collective has launched projects like “Doomtown Youth Vol. 1,” a compilation of local artists that they committed to fund and promote.
Bleakfest Vol 2 proved the point, cramming eight sets into a night that wasn’t about being slick but about doing it straight on your own terms.
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