Rezfest a Warm Springs celebration of heavy metal, community and more
Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, April 22, 2026
Kids running around. A local bakery selling tasty treats. Hearty thank yous to the local recreation department. A skateboard giveaway.
And death metal bands. A bunch of ‘em.
Say hello to Rezfest, the annual concert and community gathering that happens in Warm Springs every year around this time. There have been about nine iterations of the event, according to organizer Chuck Hudson, although he was putting on similar shows for years before settling on the name.
“Back in the day, we didn’t usually call it Rezfest,” he said. “You just had bands coming down to play.”
An all-evening concert with a diverse lineup is not necessarily an everyday thing in Warm Springs, Hudson said, which is part of the motivation for putting on the show.
“The kids here — or whoever, really — don’t have much to do besides skate at the skatepark and stuff. They don’t have much entertainment coming in as far as bands,” he said. “So Rezfest gives them something to do. They get introduced to new bands and new types of music, and they buy all the merchandise from the bands just to support them, you know?”
Support — of the bands, the organizers, the community — is the name of the game at Rezfest, where people show up to check out the scene and even buy a ticket without actually staying for the heavy metal, Hudson said. Held at the Warm Springs Community Center, it’s a drug- and alcohol-free event that has been approved by the Warm Springs Recreation Department year after year — repeated recognition of the event’s benefit to the community. And this year, the Washington death metal band Chronic Illness band will hold a free raffle to give away three Cal Skate skateboards to local kids.
“We are giving back,” Chronic Illness wrote on its Facebook profile, “to a community that has been wonderful to us over the years.”
As for the music, the lineup leans heavy but offers more than just metal. Warm Springs hip-hop artist Sho Rill will perform, as will local powwow drum group Eagle Thunder. Then, things will get loud with a bunch of bands from the Portland and Vancouver, Washington, area: Melodic death metallers Within the Pyre, thrash-influenced death metal band Dead Nexus, blistering black metallers Warden and the aforementioned Chronic Illness, plus Hudson’s own band Damage OverDose, who will celebrate their 30th anniversary of making heavy metal on the reservation next year.
The lineup is always a mix of old friends, bands that have shared bills with Damage OverDose and acts that reach out because they’ve heard that Rezfest is a great time and a great place to play for an appreciative audience.
“It’s something I work hard on every year and it’s important to me to bring music to Warm Springs,” Hudson said. “It’s always a good learning experience and it’s something that everybody looks forward to — seeing bands, hanging out, seeing family and friends they haven’t seen for a while.”
This year, Rezfest doubles as a birthday party for the man himself: Chuck Hudson turns 50 on the day of the event, May 2. When asked if he’s excited to celebrate a personal milestone at the event he has made into a cornerstone of Warm Springs’ culture, he’s as unassuming as ever.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s cool.”
If You Go
What: Rezfest
When: 5 p.m. Saturday, May 2
Where: Warm Springs Community Center, 2200 Hollywood Blvd., Warm Springs
Cost: $15
Contact: for information, search Rezfest or Damage OverDose on Facebook
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source bendbulletin.com ’
