OKLAHOMA CITY – The grassy vacant lot southeast of the OKC Public Farmers Market served as a makeshift parking lot this past weekend.
License plates from Texas, Kansas, Ohio, Minnesota and beyond could be spotted across the rows as hardcore musicians and supporters filled the historic venue for Flyover Fest, an annual celebration of hardcore music and community that took over the space for the second year.
“It’s not even so much the music, it’s seeing how everyone’s coming together,” Anthony “Twan” Ortega, one of the festival’s co-organizers, said. “The music is like an added bonus of it, but there’s just something with the vibe and the overall experience. Everyone’s so open and welcoming.”
From regional gathering to national destination
There were more people to welcome this year than at any previous version of the event, which evolved from a smaller gathering featuring mainly regional acts in Tulsa in the early 2000s.
“It’s been around forever,” Natty Gray, co-founder of Cult Love Sound Tapes, a festival sponsor, said. “It started out as ‘Promcore’ originally in the early 2000s, which was kind of just like a local Oklahoma regional event. And basically, since 2023, it’s just been growing exponentially every year.”
This year’s event featured up-and-coming bands from Oklahoma City and Tulsa, as well as acts from hardcore scenes throughout the country. The top of the bill included some of the genre’s most influential artists.
On Saturday night, Toronto’s Comeback Kid drew an electric reaction with their first appearance in the state since 2011. That evening also included an emotionally charged and highly anticipated set from the iconic Boston-based band Have Heart.
Sunday night featured Madball, a seminal band formed in New York City in 1988, and current NYHC torchbearers Pain of Truth.
These artists, among dozens of other lauded acts, delivered powerful performances to an eager crowd that at times swelled to well over 1,000 people. But for many, the connections and relationships these gatherings help form have the most lasting impact.
Building connections across scenes
Jill, a local resident and loyal supporter of the Oklahoma hardcore scene, said she was especially excited to see Boston/Rhode Island’s Neolithic and Minnesota’s Everybody Takes One.
“I like traveling to fests and having friends in local bands from other places,” she said. “They will tour with friends in other bands and bring them back here. It’s been very cool, like exploring a community that’s not just in my city. I almost feel like a part of the Minnesota hardcore scene sometimes, just because it’s so welcoming, and I’ve gotten to know all those people so well.”
A photobooth set up on one side of the venue was in constant use during the festival. Friends, some reunited after traveling hundreds of miles, embraced and posed for the camera.
Kate, vocalist of Ohio’s Self Interest, who performed Saturday afternoon, echoed the idea that interactions like these are a cherished custom for many involved in hardcore.
“Collaboration connects scenes and people. Showing up is the first step in being a part of something. Hosting bands at your house, driving five hours to go to a two-hour show. People connecting makes hardcore so special,” she said in an interview with Karalyn Hope, featured in this year’s edition of the Flyover Fest zine.
Mobilized event organization through local promoters like OKC’s Backroom Productions and Tulsa DIY venue Mass Movement Community Arts is to helping cultivate these relationships along with Oklahoma City’s geography providing fertile ground for young bands, and Twan emphasized that widespread participation is what keeps it all going.
“When people say, ‘Oh, what you do for the scene is so great,’ I’m like, dude, it’s all of us,” he said. “Someone’s got to like drive, but someone else needs to fill the gas tank. Someone else needs to check the tires. It’s all of us that does it. I love that we’re all doing this together.”
Mutual support like this is especially valuable at a time when many of the people involved, particularly younger generations, have much to gain.
More than music: Finding connection
While the festival centered on live music, attendees also ventured downstairs to explore independently run vendor displays stocked with vintage clothing, music media and original art. Pulse Initiative, an Arkansas-based public health advocacy nonprofit, was on-site offering educational resources on overdose prevention and naloxone use.
Gray spent much of the weekend representing Cult Love Sound Tapes.
“We’re a nonprofit out of Tulsa, Oklahoma,” he explained. “Our mission is basically to platform, preserve, and proliferate what we call underground cultures. This can be any number of musical genres or artistic communities, basically just ones that are underserved in an already underserved state.”
He highlighted the way Flyover Fest and other gatherings like it create opportunities for meaningful experiences, not only with the music people love but with each other.
“I hope hardcore is a starting point for a lot of younger people,” he said, “because I think about my own life growing up as a teenager in the hardcore music scene in Oklahoma, and just the way all the connections I made through it ended up having a lifetime of impact on me. To me, it’s amazing to see so many people just come together around something.”
Mary Russell, an Oklahoma City artist, attended the festival for the second year in a row with her family. She said this and other Backroom Productions events are something they can enjoy together.
“My dad and my mom have always been into metal, and they used to go to shows before my sister and I were born,” she said. “In the time since we started coming to shows, my dad had a stroke. He’s handicapped and in a wheelchair. These shows are one of the things they enjoy and can go out and do because they’re accessible to them. I like to be able to come and spend time with them.”
Keeping the community at the center
Flyover Fest has drawn larger crowds than ever before as hardcore bands worldwide experience an unprecedented surge in popularity. But while Twan acknowledges that this development has contributed to the festival’s growth, he said the sky may not be the limit for Flyover.
“Me personally, I don’t want to see Flyover getting any larger than it is right now,” he said. “We’ve had our recognition from bigger names. I’ve gotten emails from people who consider us one of the ‘big five’ fests like this. We all grew up watching videos from others like Sound and Fury, Tied Down, FYA, and LDB. To consider us even a droplet of water in that ocean of monsters is crazy, because we don’t see it like that. These guys are willing to do it, that’s cool. If they weren’t we’d still have a full festival of local and regional bands, because that’s who we started it for.”
Gray agreed that the people who make up these scenes and the communities that support them should remain at the center.
“Because despite all the division and polarization in this state, and how bad things can be, ultimately I think a lot of what’s wrong can be chalked up to the fact that people are siloed off by the modern tradition of the internet,” he said. “People need to be connecting with other people. That’s point blank here, so if that’s happening, I think that’s a pretty good thing.”
Jeremy Duke is an educator and freelance writer in Oklahoma City. He has been covering art and music since 2022.
