Giovannie and The Hired Guns Blast Wichita Falls
A night of hard rock in the parking lot
One could argue promoter On Tour Entertainment engineered a coup last night in Wichita Falls, bringing home state heroes Giovannie and The Hired Guns to town. The show went off without a hitch, in a venue that had never hosted a show before — a parking lot — and the weather cooperated to give us a perfect night that started in the 80s and dropped into a comfortable 70-something degree affair.
Giovannie Yanez is originally from Mineral Wells, and later put together The Hired Guns while he was working the counter at a Stephenville, Texas pawn shop.
Live in Wichita Falls, Giovannie put on a frenetic performance, pacing the stage and thrusting his fists at the crowd, planting one foot on the monitor as he belted song after song for the crowd’s gratification.
Giovannie and The Hired Guns released their first two albums without record label support and built their following at a grassroots level, traveling from town to town and winning fans one frenzied crowd at a time.
Their third album, Tejano Punk Boyz, was released in 2022 on Warner Music Nashville — a country label — which further demonstrated the band’s resistance to categorization. Their Wichita Falls show included covers of country classics by Hank Williams and Garth Brooks, but also rock hits like Hinder’s “Lips of an Angel,” and even an abbreviated take on Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” too.
The road to success for Giovannie and The Hired Guns has not been all roses, however. Yanez has been open about his struggle with drugs, including a Xanax habit, detailed in a 2022 interview with Rolling Stone. Songs like “The Letter” and “Numb,” show Yanez’ willingness to turn his struggles into songs, and perhaps that’s why so many have connected with Gio and the Guns.
Their show in Wichita Falls brought out a crowd that covered every demographic, from country to rock, and cowboy boots and hats were as common as sneakers and baseball caps. For Falls music fans, starving for concerts at the next level, Giovannie and The Hired Guns were just what the doctor ordered.
As the show came to a close, those familiar with Gio’s music still hadn’t heard what they came for — the Guns’ biggest hit, Ramon Ayala, which at the time of this writing had 26-million listens on Spotify. The crowd would not be denied and demanded an encore, which Yanez and his crew obliged, playing their biggest smash hit and several others.
The only complication we noticed at this show was a beer line that demanded about a 45-minute wait, a problem that could be satiated by ordering three beers at once when you finally arrived at the counter.
Let’s hope On Tour Entertainment brings us more nights like this one in the future, because it was an affordable and entertaining night of live music in Wichita Falls.
Have you seen Giovannie and The Hired Guns perform? Did you attend the show? Tell us about it in the comments.
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