Get Excited About Heavy Weekend, an Explosive New Documentary Series by Away Days and VICE - VICE

Not once since I first met Jake Hanrahan has he ever flinched in the face of a good story. He started writing for VICE while I was UK Editor in the 2010s, charting the rise of railway destroying nihilist-anarchist groups across Europe and the “murderous little boys” destined to become the future of Mexico’s interminable drug wars. Quickly, he went from researching documentaries to hosting them, navigating frontlines in Kurdistan and Ukraine for VICE News, before casually striding off to revolutionize war reporting with his own endeavor Popular Front.

Now, in a new collaboration between VICE and his countercultural project, Away Days, Hanrahan and his filmmaking partner in crime Jonny Pickup are shining a light on the wildest international outlaw collectives you don’t know about yet. The new show is called Heavy Weekend, and it launches this week at VICE: Members Only and the VICE YouTube channel.

With episodes devoted to fight clubs, illegal street racers, clandestine cartels, and other such daredevil tribes, Heavy Weekend is an onslaught of “dispatches from outside society”—as Hanrahan and Pickup put it—riotous, hedonistic, and sometimes hilarious howls of rage that tell you a lot about how young people are filling the gaping chasms inside themselves and at the heart of life today. It’s the kind of work that VICE always ought to be doing: reporters putting themselves into chaotic, real-world situations and finding the signal through the noise.

It’s a rare thrill to be working with Jake and his team again. You’re going to love finding out what they’ve been up to. Make sure you don’t miss Episode 1 of Heavy Weekend by subscribing to VICE: Members Only or the VICE YouTube channel: it premieres this Friday, September 11, and we’ll be making a racket about it.