What started as kind of a Facebook joke exploded into Missoula's (and possibly the world's?) first ever celebration of both metal music, and tater tots.

On Saturday, August 17th, Missoula's Metal community threw a party to raise money for CASA of Missoula, a cause that is near and dear to our hearts. Hundreds of metal fans and 16 bands from all over Montana and surrounding states came together at the Dark Horse bar for 12 hours of tater tot munching and incredible sets.

Photo by Angel
Photo by Angel
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If you're not familiar with Eddie Johnson and his wife Sherri, let me tell ya a little something about them. They have a local band called Blessiddoom and their love for metal music is unmatched. Sincerely, the amazing events that this couple is able to organize and pull off successfully is mind blowing, especially considering that the majority of the time they are doing it purely for their love of music, and nothing more. I cannot give enough praise to Eddie's family, his band, his supporters, along with Kammy at the Dark Horse, Walking Corpse Syndrome, Kromdar, Two Foot Titan, Jeremy & Emily Haacke, our sound guys and so many more people that worked Totfest on Saturday.

Photo by Angel
Photo by Angel
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And the bands, holy shit! The opening band out of Spokane set the stage for what to expect at Saturday's festival. Dysfunktional Kaos are made up of, like, 8 band members, most of them around 16 years old and they absolutely impressed everyone in the room. Literally every single band who played the festival were so talented and entertaining, no one left the bar disappointed.

Photo by KC
Photo by KC
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Congrats to Maeve Carroll, who's Tater Tot Casserole won the cook off, and to Brent Walker, who dominated the tater tot eating contest! Maeve had quite the story about how she made her casserole so delish, it had everything to do with locally sourced foods and day drinking, love her!

Thank you to Walking Corpse Syndrome, Blessiddoom, At Home in Hell, Devilution, Break the Broken, Switch Off Safety, Hanover Fist, Boldly Stride the Damned, Ceres, Chaos II Clarity, Dysfunktional Kaos, Mahamawaldi, Shot Stereo, Resurgence, Eye of Halja and Two Foot Titan. Not only for their talents, but for being just good humans all around.

At the end of the day, after expenses were considered, our celebration of tater tots and metal allowed for a $2000 donation to CASA of Missoula. Our metal community is the true heart of Missoula \m/

Photo by Angel
Photo by Angel
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