First annual Brickfest set for

Following the success of Punk-a-a-thon, the Brickhouse owner Kendal Brunet is putting on his own annual all-ages live music festival, as a kind of back to school blast.

The lineup includes nine bands for a ticket price of a mere $12.

The bands performing include Meriwether (Baton Rouge), Death to Juliet (Houma), Speed of Sound (Houma), Roseline (Thibodaux/Houma), Nothing More (San Antonio), 6 Pack Deep (Baton Rouge), Greedy White Citizens (Atlanta), Southern Mayhem (Thibodaux/Houma), and the Ta-Ta Destroyers (Houma).

Meriwether will actually perform at the Brickhouse the night before Brickfest and will close out the festival.

The festival will open Aug. 4 at 2 p.m. and the first band will start rocking downtown Houma at 3 p.m. The all-ages part of the festival will run to 10 p.m.

After 10 p.m., Greedy White Citizens, Nothing More and 6 Pack Deep will play an 18 and over show inside the Brickhouse.

People 18 and over who bought a Brickfest ticket can see these bands perform, again, for free. Those who don’t have a Brickfest ticket will have to pay a $6 cover to go inside the Brickhouse for the show.

The bands that do have merchandise will be selling what they have during the festival.

Brunet talked about Brickfest and the Brickhouse as a music venue.

“One of the things that we pride ourselves on here is providing a variety,” said Brunet. “You may come in on a Friday night and have metal as heavy as Goatwhore and you come in on Saturday night and I have a Reggae band from Chico, California. That way, you know at any given time you can pop in and you don’t know what you’ll find. It may be your bag. It may not. But if not, try again the next night and it probably will be.”

He said he started to host underage shows like Brickfest and Punk-a-thon after realizing how much of a market there was for underage live music lovers. And tapping into that audience with an all-ages concert is a great way for bands to reach new audiences.

Brunet began his music venue-providing career back in Baton Rouge, where he worked for the Caterie for 5 1/2 years. He said he literally saw hundreds of live shows during that time.

He opened the Brickhouse back in May of 2002. And over that five-year span he said the Brickhouse has seen bands from 17 states and three countries perform for a ball parked number of 600 to 700 different bands.

He said in his five years as owner at the Brickhouse, he’s personally contacted only five of those bands.

“It was always the goal. It kind of baffles me, now, from time to time, because at any given time if I go check my MySpace, which is where I do most of my booking, I’ll have six or seven messages every time I check it. Four of those being from bands who are hopping over themselves to try get here. It’s just hard. I don’t have enough weekends in a year to give a gig to every band trying to play here. I wish I could.”

And the Brickhouse’s popularity and reputation as a great live music venue has been growing. Kendal said the number of bands wanting to come and perform has increase about five-fold since the Brickhouse opened. Just since last year, he said the demand has increase about three-fold.

After listening to “road warrior” stories from bands for 10 years, Kendal empathizes with the bands that come in to perform. He tries to make their experience a good one by doing the simple things, like providing a green room for the bands.

“You start getting to know these guys and sitting and talking with them and hearing all their road warrior stories. You understand what they’re going through,” said Brunet. “It’s more of a hospitality thing. We just try to take care of them.”