Jason Crews is the owner and editor of INFRARED MAGAZINE and a Dallas–Fort Worth-based music journalist and concert photographer. Through INFRARED MAGAZINE and JASON CREWS PHOTOGRAPHY, he covers rock, metal, country, and live music with a focus on album reviews, artist features, concert coverage, and photography. His work is driven by a genuine passion for music and helping artists connect with new audiences through honest writing, strong visuals, and meaningful storytelling.
Dallas has never needed much of an excuse to get loud, but on New Year’s Eve 2014, South Side Ballroom gave the city one hell of a reason. Instead of champagne glasses, dress clothes and the typical countdown celebration, thousands of North Texas metal fans packed into the venue to close out the year with two bands that have deep ties to the Texas heavy music scene: HELLYEAH and special guests DROWNING POOL.
It was exactly the kind of New Year’s Eve Dallas deserved—loud, sweaty, aggressive and unapologetically heavy.
DROWNING POOL
See the Full DROWNING POOL Gallery HERE
For DROWNING POOL, the night carried an added significance. The Dallas natives were celebrating the “Unlucky 13th Anniversary” of their landmark 2001 debut Sinner, performing the album in its entirety and bringing one of the most important records to ever emerge from the Dallas metal scene back home.
There is something different about hearing Sinner performed in Dallas. This is where DROWNING POOL was built. These songs grew out of the same local scene represented by many of the people standing inside South Side Ballroom that night, and more than thirteen years after the album first exploded onto the national stage, its impact had not faded.
With Jasen Moreno commanding the microphone, guitarist C.J. Pierce, bassist Stevie Benton and drummer Mike Luce attacked the material with the kind of energy that has always made DROWNING POOL such a powerful live band.
The songs from Sinner remain brutally effective in a concert setting. That record was built around enormous riffs, pounding rhythms and choruses designed to be screamed back from a crowd, and hearing the material performed front to back created a celebration not only of the album but of the band’s history.
Moreno brought his own presence to songs permanently associated with late vocalist Dave Williams, respecting what came before while never trying to simply imitate it. That distinction matters. The legacy of Sinner will always be inseparable from Williams, but DROWNING POOL has continued moving forward while keeping that history alive every time these songs return to the stage.
As the set progressed, the audience became increasingly physical. Heads were banging, fists were in the air and the floor seemed to move beneath the crowd.
Then came the song everyone knew was coming.
“Bodies.”
More than a decade after becoming one of the defining heavy songs of its era, that opening buildup still produces an almost automatic reaction. The moment it hit South Side Ballroom, the room erupted.
The pit exploded.
Thousands of voices joined together.
For a few minutes, South Side Ballroom became complete chaos in the best possible way.
It was the perfect ending to a homecoming performance built around the album that introduced DROWNING POOL to the world.
And somehow, the night was only getting started.
HELLYEAH
See the Full HELLYEAH Gallery HERE
When HELLYEAH finally took the stage, there was no gradual introduction and no attempt to ease anyone into the second half of the night.
They came out swinging.
The band launched into “Hellyeah,” immediately turning South Side Ballroom into a massive celebration of heavy music, Texas attitude and pure aggression.
At the center of it all was Chad Gray.
Gray has always been one of those frontmen who seems incapable of performing at anything less than full intensity. His vocals can move from melodic passages into a violent roar almost instantaneously, and live, that contrast becomes even more pronounced. He prowled the stage, screamed directly into the crowd and pulled energy out of the audience before throwing it right back at them.
Beside him, guitarist Tom Maxwell delivered riff after riff with precision and aggression, giving the songs their jagged metallic edge.
But underneath everything stood one of the most unmistakable rhythm sections in modern heavy music.
Kyle Sanders brought a crushing low end on bass while Vinnie Paul Abbott sat behind the kit delivering the massive groove that had defined so much of his career.
There was simply no mistaking Vinnie Paul’s drumming.
Every kick landed with weight. Every snare hit felt enormous. His playing wasn’t about unnecessary flash—it was about groove, power and making an entire room move.
And in Dallas, watching Vinnie Paul behind a drum kit carried additional meaning.
This was Texas.
This was home.
For generations of metal fans in North Texas, Vinnie wasn’t simply the drummer in HELLYEAH. He was part of the foundation of the music culture that helped put Dallas–Fort Worth metal on the worldwide map. Seeing him command a stage in his home territory remained something special every single time.
At this point in their career, HELLYEAH were touring behind Blood for Blood, an album that had pushed the band into heavier and darker territory while producing one of their biggest radio successes with “Moth.”
The newer material fit naturally beside the band’s established live favorites. Rather than sounding like a side project built around musicians from other successful bands, HELLYEAH had firmly established an identity of their own.
That identity came across even stronger live.
Their music is built for rooms like South Side Ballroom. Huge riffs. Massive drums. Shouted choruses. Songs that demand movement from the crowd.
And on New Year’s Eve, Dallas gave them exactly that.
The relationship between the band and audience felt less like the traditional separation between performer and spectator and more like one enormous Texas metal party happening on both sides of the barricade.
As midnight approached, the significance of the night became impossible to ignore. Everyone inside the building had chosen to spend the final hours of 2014 together surrounded by screaming guitars, pounding drums and thousands of other people who understood exactly why there was nowhere else they would rather be.
There are countless ways to celebrate New Year’s Eve.
Dallas chose metal.
With DROWNING POOL revisiting the album that launched them from the Dallas scene onto the international stage and HELLYEAH delivering the kind of crushing performance they had become known for, the night felt uniquely connected to North Texas.
It wasn’t simply two heavy bands sharing a bill.
It was Dallas celebrating its own.
DROWNING POOL reminded everyone why Sinner remains such an important piece of Texas metal history, while HELLYEAH reinforced what anyone who had seen them live already knew: this was a band capable of absolutely destroying a stage.
Closing out 2014 inside South Side Ballroom with Chad Gray, Tom Maxwell, Kyle Sanders, Vinnie Paul and one of Dallas’ most enduring metal bands was about as fitting a New Year’s Eve celebration as a Texas metal fan could ask for.
No tuxedos.
No quiet champagne toast.
Just loud guitars, circle pits, raised fists and one final reminder that when Dallas decides to throw a metal party, it knows exactly how to do it.
HELLYEAH.
