TRAVERSE CITY — Leave it to bluegrass superstar Billy Strings to create musical mayhem of the heavy metal variety.
The one-time Traverse City resident and globally acclaimed bluegrass guitar hero on Sunday night joined his Michigan pals in the extreme hardcore band Flesh and Blood Robot for a rambunctious, loud, metal assault in a surprise appearance at The Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids.
The same virtuoso Michigan musician who sold out the 12,000-seat Van Andel Arena for a five-hour spectacle last Halloween ignited a delirious, jam-packed crowd in the 420-capacity downtown nightclub.
Instead of flat-picking an acoustic guitar, Billy Strings, aka William Apostol, lit up the cozy venue with thunderous riffs and searing, eye-popping solos on electric guitar while the sold-out throng crowd-surfed and fist-pumped to the set by the Lansing-area band staging a reunion show for its diehard fans — part of a seven-band night of rafter-rattling metalcore sets.
Billy Strings, an Ionia County native who first made a splash as a bluegrass guitarist in Traverse City and now resides in Nashville, called it “a complete celebration” and an “awesome” reunion with musicians he grew up with.
“I think most of Ionia is here tonight. it’s been awesome to have you here,” said Chris Fox, lead singer for Flesh and Blood Robot, playing its first show in 18 years. “It’s been an absolute pleasure. This has been a huge blast from the past.”
Fox also hailed a grinning Apostol, noting that band members first knew Billy Strings when he was much younger and “when he wasn’t such a monster.”
The Grammy Award-winning guitarist played in the metalcore band To Once Darkened Skies as a teenager growing up in the tiny town of Muir. He proved during Sunday’s show that he hasn’t lost any of his manic metal energy. He uncorked plenty of hair-tossing, head-swiveling and jumping on stage while showing off his shredding skills.
After the 45-minute-or-so set, an ebullient Billy Strings met and hugged old friends in the parking lot and took photos with fans.
“Last night was a complete celebration. It was so great to reunite with some of my best friends I haven’t seen in years,” he wrote on Facebook, calling members of Flesh and Blood Robot his first “big brothers” in a band that he admired. “So many homies from GR, Ionia, Muir and Lyons were in the house. It was a straight-up heavy metal reunion and a flashback to the mid 2000s.
“The energy in the room was fast and thick. Sweaty and poignant.”
The rumor and buzz about Billy Strings’ possible appearance at the show started a couple months ago, fueled recently by a brief Instagram video of a practice session with Flesh and Blood Robot.
Not surprisingly, the show drew a bevy of bluegrass fans curious about their hero’s hardcore shredding along with mega-enthused metalheads.
Other bands performing on the Sunday bill were From a Second Story Window, Heartsick, Dust Biters, Strangers, See You Next Tuesday and Grand Rapids’ Nights Like These which noted during its set: “Everybody knows what’s going on here tonight. It’s fantastic.”