FRIDAY
We arrived Friday around 11:00AM. Sadly we had already missed the preparty w/ our friends in Crazy Town and the First full day which featured the Reunions of Kittie, Shadows Fall and The Union Underground along w/ some other amazing acts. The most upsetting band to miss on Thursday for me (other than those reunions) was Nothing More. However the weekend had only begun for us and there was still some incredible bands to see.
As we pulled up to the Blue parking lot we already saw the lines for the shuttles. They swept up and down the rows of cars three full times. The story was that the promoters of the event had secured 40 Shuttles (Buses, vans and such). By the looks of it we were waiting on 6 at the absolute most to drive hundreds of people to the venue. I got there anticipating sets from Small Town Titans, Vended, Orbit Culture and Slaughter To Prevail. Upon waiting just over 3 hours for a shuttle to get to the Virginia International Speedway we arrived promptly around 3:00 and were able to slip through security unchecked just as Buckcherry were ripping into “Lit up”. We needed some water and realized that making it over to the Side stages for Slaugter to Prevail was not gonna happen and we’d already missed Vended, Small Town Titans and Orbit Culture. So we surveyed the scene, got some water (which wasn’t bad only $3.00) and relaxed a bit before we took in a full set by Candlebox.
Candlebox was pretty great live (albeit Kevin Martin being a bit uninterested in being there, or so it seemed). They went through thier hits like “Far Behind”, “Simple Lessons”, “Cover Me” and of course “You”. For a band that’s been around over 25 years they still know how to rock. As mentioned vocalist Kevin Martin seemed rather lethargic and had to stop the set at one point for an injured fan.
We stuck around the main stage for Badflower who really impressed me. This is a band I’ve attempted to book numerous times and was very excited to see live. They used thier 30 minute slot to really get the crowd into the show. Lead singer went topless and crowd surfed as they played Hits like “Heroin” and set closer “30”. They split songs from both thier records evenly and had a nice flow to their set
I was for the most part lingering around the main stage waiting on the mighty Sevendust. I’ve seen these guys many times and they have never ever ceased to amaze me. Every single time from the first time I saw them nearly 25 years ago to this year. They were doing songs from thier album “Animosity” as it’s the records anniversary. Singer Lajon was especially emotional as he fought back tears when thanking the crowd for not only being there after 2 years of madness in the world but also for caring about thier record Animosity. He spoke to the crowd more than I recall him doing in the past and from what I could see filled the stage area w/ more people than anyone else to that point of the day. It seemed plain to me they were a feature act even though they played before 5:00PM. Ripping through “Praise”, “Crucified”, “Trust” and set closer “Pieces” (which was the only song played not from “Animosity”) they opened up pits, got the crowd jumping and connected w/ the audience like not many other bands can do. After 25 years Lajon still asks the crowd if we know who they are and will we have them back. From what I could tell 100% of the crowd knew exactly who they are and would go see them every day of the week.
At the conclusion of Sevendust I finally wandered over to the URW stage and experienced “The Hill”. There was an incredible amount of people complaining about said hill and a few counteracting those by saying “it wasn’t that bad”. In my opinion it wasn’t the worst thing in the world however when standing in line for hours, walking all over the festival grounds a hill like that is much steeper than it would be had you just been dropped there and walked up or down it. The accumulation of walking is what made that hill and to a lesser extent the hills on all the stages (except for the Iheart Stage) to be a bonefide pain in the ass. My arrival at the URW stage was met w/ In Flames who I had wanted to see for years. These guys sound tight as hell live. The vocalist was cracking me up w/ his attempts to get the crowd cheering and when they weren’t loud enough he’d give us shit. The band basically played a song from each record and included a new song or two yet to find their way on an official release. I managed to slip up front by way of walking up the side and sneaking in. The crowd was wild and the pit was large. This would be an absolute amazing act for me to get at Lovedrafts.
Following In Flames was the main reason I ventured over to URW to begin with and that’s the legendary Hatebreed. The band brought the energy like so few can ripping through I believe 13 tracks as the dust from the pit was sifting through the air and not single person up front was standing still. “Destroy Everything”, “This is Now”, “To The Threshold” and set closer “I Will be heard” just to name a small portion of the set that had the crowd eating out of thier hands the entire 45 minutes. I understand that writing a review the primary job is to review a set however I must say there might not be words to describe the feeling of a Hatebreed concert.
How do you follow up a band like Hatebreed? Blue Ridge did it by putting an absolute Legend on stage. Phil Anselmo, that’s right the singer of the Iconic metal band Pantera brought his Slugdge rock metal band Down to Virginia to throw down w/ the fans for about 50 minutes. Second song into the set He surveyed the crowd and eventually would say “I want everyone to turn around and look at that fucking moon”. Every single person turned around to look at a beautiful fool moon that the band is blessed to be playing under. He would go on to dedicate “Lifer” to his fallen Pantera brothers Dimebag Darrel and Vinnie Paul. The band ripped through an 8 song set that delighted every metal head in attendence. By the looks of it the night was special to Phil and many are hoping this leads to an appearance next year by his primary band Pantera. Time will tell…
I trekked over to the Fan Driven stage for the first time after Down in order to catch some of the Insane Clown Posse. The band Electric Callboy had canceled and in order to relieve a bit of the overlap between ICP and Alice Cooper they scheduled The clowns for 9:00PM however if you’ve seen these guys before you know being punctual is not thier thing. So as 9:15-9:20 rolled around the Faygo was wheeled onto the stage and two large boxes presented as Presents were also brought on stage. As the Circus music began two volunteers hopped around the big 7 ft tall boxes pretending it was Christmas morning as the crowd screamed not to open the boxes as we of course knew they consisted of two wicked clowns. After a few minutes the boxes naturally revealed two action figures one being shaggy to dope and one being Violent J and the two painted faced men came out and ripped through a 23 song set featuring hightlights such as “Chicken Huntin”, “The Neden Game”, “Halls of Illusions” amongst many others. This was a rare treat as the band does not perform often anymore since Violent J. fell ill to A-Fib. For this night they made every second count, drenching the crowd w/ Faygo for over an hour. For my part i was only able to catch a few songs as I was intending on seeing Alice Cooper and finally Mudvayne after 20 years.
After watching about 20 minutes of ICP I headed back to the URW stage to see the Icon Alice Cooper. I managed to once again slip up the side and get myself a pretty close spot to see Mr. Cooper. I was much closer than i ever thought I’d be to the man. He was also extremely late starting his set but it was worth it as the man on the loudspeaker went through an intro speech that ended w/ the line “And I’m Hungry” which lead into “Feed My Frankenstien”. Wow what an incredible feeling to see this live. Alice emerged w/ his famous top hat and cane to work through the first song followed by another classic “No More Mr. Nice Guy”. I must admit I never in a million years thought I’d be 20 feet away from Alice Cooper seeing these songs performed live. Sadly I had to cut it short after 4 songs but I was lucky enough to hear “Hey Stoopid” as I was venturing back to the main stage to see the band that honestly might have been the highlight of the weekend going in. I had tickets to see Mudvayne back in 05 and had been listening to them since before the debut album as I was on thier “Street Team” and had cassette singles to hand out. On my way I stopped to grab a $21 Hamburger. Yes that’s right $21 for a burger, bun and some condiments. That’s probably the most expensive burger I’ve ever had and I’ll tell you what, it was pretty damn good. Was it worth $21? Probably not but it beat shitty concert pizza (which I’d fill up on the next day, more to come on that).
As I made my way to the Monster stage I was able to catch the last couple songs by A Day To Remember, a band I hadn’t really planned on seeing but they were a nice band to eat my burger and chill out to before the Mudvayne boys hit the stage. If I’m at another Festival w/ ADTR I’ll be more inclined to check them out. As they ended it wasn’t five minutes later that the Monster stage began spraying the sounds of “Dig” onto the crowd. As the song kicks into high gear and Chad Grey lets out his signiture scream the curtain came down and there they were, I was finally watching a Mudvayne concert. Chad was very vocal talking about the Metal community and being grateful for what they came back to after thier 10 year hiatus. They ripped through many songs off “LD.50” the debut record as well as a few singles off other records like “Dull Boy”, “Determined”, “Not Falling” and night closer “Happy?”. I had mixed feelings about the performance as they had their moments that were powerful and they certainly had the pits going and likely had them bigger than any other throughout the day, however Chad was struggling. He wasn’t able to get through full lines and his screams were much lower pitched as it appeared he couldn’t reach the same notes. The Camera man who was broadcasting the show on the three big screens was a tad close in my opinion as I wasn’t sure I needed to see the inside of his mouth so close up so many times. After about what I assumed would be half the bands set I started slowly walking towards the exit as I wasn’t interested in waiting in lines to get back to my car. To Late, I was fortunate enough to catch the last portion of the set outside of the concert grounds awaiting the shuttle to take me back to my car. After over 90 minutes and listening to the same people talk about god knows what I finally made it on a bus. I trampled off the bus a little after 1 in the morning, tired, sore and not looking forward to the hour trip to the hotel.
On the way to the hotel I saw a sheetz about 30 minutes away and thought to myself “I could go for a hot dog or two”. So I stopped but to my surprise (or maybe not) it was pretty full w/ concert goers, I know because they all had thier wristbands on. One person behind counter and the Self Check out lines were closed. So rather than waiting another hour for food, I sucked it up, grabbed some milk (it does a body good you know) and headed back to the hotel. I was in bed asleep within about ten minutes of walking in the hotel door. I had visions of the day and of course my plans for tomorrow dancing in my head. Overall I waited in lines for nearly 5 hours, caught roughly 11 bands and got a feel for what the next 2 days would be like (or so I thought)….
