In its mere three years of taking over Austin for one afternoon every March, Full Metal Texas has become an institution: without knowing anything in advance, you can easily predict that every year there will be a multi-stage event with Grade A metal bands, top to bottom. This year is no different, and we’re proud, once again, to be a sponsor of the event!

This year’s FMT will take place at Emo’s on Thursday, March 17th, starting at noon, and is All Ages as per usual. Without further ado, here is this year’s stellar line-up:

OUTSIDE
The Red Chord  5:10pm
The Word Alive  4:10pm
Upon A Burning Body  3:15pm
Letlive  2:30pm
Elysion Fields  1:45pm
Better Left Unsaid  1:00pm
Contest Winner from Roadrunner Records’ SignMeTo  12:15pm

INSIDE
Yob (first Austin performance in over 5 years)  5:00
Trap Them  4:05pm
Hull  3:10pm
Kvelertak  2:20pm
Rwake  1:35pm
All Pigs Must Die  12:50pm
Goes Cube  12:05pm

Fuck to the yes. So stoked. Make sure you RSVP at the official FMT website lest you be locked out, and since the event is free it’ll fill up fast. See you there.

After 6 nights of non-stop boozing my body was starting to tell me it was time to take a break. When I woke up Thursday morning I was tired and cranky. The first night of SXSW — or any gathering large or small, for that matter — is always a rager, right? Everyone’s so excited to see each other that they all go balls to the wall. Thursday morning I was feeling the cumulative effects of 6 days of boozing and the prior night’s activities and I decided to take a break from the sauce for a while.

I was up at 11 and treated myself to a nice sit-down breakfast at the hotel. I headed over to Emo’s with Frank from Metal Injection to hang our banners at Full Metal Texas before the Noon door time to find folks literally lined up around the block to get in. Word of special secret guest Dillinger Escape Plan had apparently gotten out, as if the free admission and a dozen other awesome bands weren’t enough to pique folks’ interest in the first place. Karnivool, Animals as Leaders, Darkest Hour, Howl, Amarna Reign and Iron Age were just a few of the many bands to play that absolutely killed.

The whole no booze thing was going pretty well. Until I was given a handful of drink tickets. I ordered up a Heineken tallboy and got about half-way through before the dames at RockPit.com accosted me for a quick interview. When I literally stopped mid-sentence because I drew a complete blank on which showcase I’d been at the night before I knew it was time to really put down the booze. Enough. For the rest of the day it was just water for this guy.

Onto the bands!

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Texan Suckalos! Do you love metal? Do you love free shit? Do you love free shit having to do with metal?!?! OF COURSE YOU DO! And that’s why MetalSucks is incredibly proud to be co-sponsoring Full Metal Texas 2010, a FREE all-day show that will take place at Emo’s in Austin, Texas, on Thursday, March 18.

And just ’cause it’s free don’t mean it’s cheap. Look at the line-up: Fair to Midland, Darkest Hour, Born of Osiris, Iwrestledabearonce, Iron Age, Karnivool, Naam, Howl, Amarna Reign, Your Demise, Upon a Burning Body, and Lions Lions. Holy shit, that’s a lotta good bands. And Eagle Rock Entertainment will be previewing two new Classic Album DVDs from Black Sabbath and Rush. And did we mention tickets are free?

You can RSVP here – doing so will make you eligible for VIP drink specials at the show, and will enter you into a contest from the aforementioned Eagle Rock Entertainment, who are giving away a Blu-Ray player, a bunch of DVDs, and some other cool swag. You can also follow Full Metal Texas on Twitter for all the latest updates.

Clearly, this show is gonna kick all kinds of ass. RSVP now.

-Axl, Vince, and Everyone at MetalSucks

After the antics of the first day of the festival, I felt more than ready to get into day two with a healthy dose of music from the beginning. Unfortunately, that was not to be so for me, as at the time I thought I would be continuing on after SXSW into further ridonkulousness, all the way to a family vacation during Spring Break in Mexico….and today was the day that my renewed passport was meant to be FedExed to the flophouse where Vince and I were crashing.

When I had returned to said flophouse the night prior and to my surprise found an open couch in the living room right by the front door (where I was told FedEx homeboy would appear bright and early), I figured it prolly made the most sense to sleep right there on the ground floor as opposed to the stank upstairs sweat lodge where I would be sure to miss any sounds of door knocking.

Sadly, no FedEx arrived in the morning as promised — I was actually awoken by a phone call from Vince around noon wondering where the hell I had ended up last night. After a couple more hours my passport finally arrived, at which point I had to wait at least another hour for a cab to take me down to the action.

HOLY SHIT.

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