Metal Mayhem at Ace BBQ.

Like an old day drinker, Old Hank had been riding his bike past Ace BBQ regularly for the last month or so to watch as the stage in the open air space under the building was being built. 

It’s in my hood and we eat here enough to know something was about to go off from a music standpoint. So we reached out to the dudes at Ace and set up a talk with Ethan – the guy who does booking before taking in some bands who would try out the new space that night.

Ethan also fronts Septic Vomit, a local Gore Grind outfit as well as a couple other metal enterprises and plays banjo like a mother fucker.

I asked Ethan what the vision for Ace the music venue is.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he said to restore Charlottesville Metal to its former glory. 

Pre-covid, the Cville metal scene thrived. However a couple of main venues including Magnolia closed during lockdown. Pre-bankrupt Champion was a big supporter of metal in town, too. So when they went belly up as well, there was really no local venue left committed to metal. Shows for anything heavy got spotty. The Cville metal scene was twisting in the wind.

Meanwhile Ace BBQ’s new owner Stephan Friedman bought the place in 2023 and had dreams of adding “great music venue” to Ace’s accolades. Anyone who eats around town already knows that the cue, biscuits, fried chicken, everything at Ace is as good as it gets.  

But he wanted Ace to be known for music, too.

Then one day Stephan came upon Ethan busking banjo on the downtown mall. They struck up a conversation and hit it off, sharing a vision to create Charlottesville’s Home of “Metal Mayhem”. 

Stephan brought Ethan on board to do booking and run the board in March of last year. The shows were held in the main space inside until a nasty break-in with vandalism messed with the whole program in a big way. But the team was able to get back on track and got the underground stage and system built this spring. The venue is now booked pretty much through the summer. 

Because Ace is in an industrially zoned area, the open air venue does not create any noise issues with the neighborhood, and in fact the sound really doesn’t seem to travel that far anyway. So bands and fans alike are free to let it fly.

I arrived Friday at 7pm to a packed parking lot and got a spot out by the tracks. There was already a crowd anxiously hanging around outside. I grabbed a coupla 4 buck tall Modelos and slid down and around to the pit. 

This is an absolutely perfect space for a Cville metal resurgence to seed, root, bloom and fester. 

It’s industrial, like fucking 1970’s Soviet-assed industrial. It could be a prison set for a Netflix Korean horror thriller. The ground is gravel, the walls cinder block. Exposed metal rafters do double duty as monkey bars, trapeze, and pull up bars.

The place would soon be cranking. The night’s lineup included Septic Vomit, Aisle 19, Law Waste, Failure and Chezolangia.

I would have been very happy to write the first take on this Metal Mayhem at Ace. The place was seething. The bands were well up to the job. And the big audience of Central VA locals and some who trucked in from MD was hard core and ripping. 

But there was no fucking chance in hell that, as a hard rock kid from Jersey, the out-of-town Bazz was gonna allow an Old Hillbilly to do the first write-up on a night of bands raging in the womb that may well give birth to a monstrous, shrieking, gore-spewing resurgence of the hard stuff here in Cville.

Bazz is back in town and will cover the upcoming big show at Ace on Friday, May 30th. I’ll be there for the start but also make the short hop up to Superfly to catch Studebaker Huck that night. When I get back I hope to find Bazz in one piece.

Take it away my burly, inkish friend. You have been asking for metal in Cville. And for your sins, Satan has granted your wish.

Nighty night,

Old Hank

P.S. Lay Waste just DM’d that it was the most fun show they’ve ever played. That is a solid testiment to a new venue—the bands know!