.JPG)
The Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival blasted into the Comcast Theater in Hartford, Connecticut on Saturday, more than living up to its name as Korn and Rob Zombie headlined nine straight hours of heavy metal insanity for over 10,000 pumped fans.
Even scorching, 100 degree heat couldn’t stop the metal masses from filling the seats and lawns of the 15,000 capacity amphitheater for the dozen bands comprising the three stages of the third annual Mayhem Festival (read my review of last year’s Hartford show here). Fans proudly went shirtless or displayed t-shirts of hundreds of various metal bands, while girls in bikini tops and daisy dukes ate up the attention and stares one might expect from the 20-1 male to female ratio.
Popular and up-and-coming bands such as Shadows Fall, In This Moment, and 3 Inches of Blood filled the two secondary stages off to the side of the venue, in addition to dozens of merchant booths and Rockstar Energy Drink tents, filled with free helpings of caffeine and sugar-loaded energy drinks. Watch my preshow interview with Jagermeister Stage headliners Hatebreed here, alongside a review of their brutal performance.
The all-day festival featured four headlining acts with the rapidly popular Five Finger Death Punch, widely recognized metal leaders Lamb of God, classic horror maestro Rob Zombie, and nu-metal pioneers Korn. The layout of the Comcast Theater’s main stage featured a small open pit area right up against the stage, but with only room for about a thousand lucky ticket holders, everyone else was stuck in the amphitheater seating, or on the sloped, grassy general admission lawn behind it.
Fans who had battled it out under the sun in the second stage mosh pits were bruised, tired, and likely dehydrated by the time Five Finger Death Punch opened the main stage, but the band’s high energy showmanship quickly got the floor jumping and the crowd singing along. 5FDP has had an almost meteoric rise to prominence, largely off the success of their radio-friendly debut album The Way of the Fist. One of the headliners of the second stage on Mayhem Fest’s debut 2008 run, opening the main stage only two years later is almost unheard of in an industry where bands can struggle for a decade before getting mainstream recognition on such a level.
.JPG)
The group had an elaborate set on stage, with machine gun barrels protruding from drummer Jeremy Spencer’s massive drum kit, and frontman Ivan Moody wearing a bulletproof vest in support of the theme of their newest album, War is the Answer (watch my interview with Ivan and Jeremy from last September here). Opening with new song Burn It Down, fans mostly chose to sing along and pump their fists in the air, with some light slam dancing in lieu of any full-fledged mosh pits. Nonetheless, Five Finger definitely delivered on raw, crushing songs such as No One Gets Left Behind and Way of the Fist, which features a particularly slow, brutal breakdown.
Moody is a high-energy, in-your-face singer, but also capable of melodic, almost beautiful choruses, as demonstrated on songs like Salvation, a fantastic cover of Bad Company (by Bad Company), and their final song of the night, radio hit The Bleeding. Watch my video of Bad Company below:
While the nature of Mayhem Festival limited the group’s setlist, it was certainly a professional, satisfying performance which proved Five Finger Death Punch’s talent, commitment, and sheer metal-ness. There is no question that this band will be playing larger venue on their own within a few short years.
Lamb of God was up next, and their brutal, no-holds-barred brand of heavy metal would be one of the evening’s most intense performances. Singer Randy Blythe roared, howled, and screamed like a man possessed, never standing still as he stalked from one end of the stage to the other.
With drummer Chris Adler, one of metal’s most recognized players, laying down a nonstop frenzy of blast beats, the band tore through some of their heaviest and most popular tracks. Surprisingly, unlike other recent shows, exhausted fans in the pit moshed only halfheartedly to typically ultra-violent songs like Set to Fail, Walk With Me in Hell, and Now You’ve Got Something to Die For, although virtually the entire venue stomped around to the slow, monstrous breakdown in Laid to Rest.
In between songs, Blythe frequently demanded that fans “Destroy this place!” and “F*ck this place up!” With the lawn out of the line of vision from the stage, the frontman had no way to know that thousands of fans on the lawn had actually taken his message to heart, as they ripped clumps of grass and sod from the well-manicured lawn and began hurling it at each other, as well as towards the venue security at the rear of the seats.
By the end of Lamb of God’s set, truly a soundtrack to destruction, most of the audience’s attention was focused backwards towards the increasingly demolished lawn, watching what resembled an all-out war straight out of Braveheart (coincidentally airing on TNT at that very time). Waves of shirtless kids charged up and down the muddied hill at each other, flinging chunks of mud while endless barrages of sod filled the air and sent the rear rows of the pavilion seats scrambling for cover.
Venue security could only stand helplessly by as the frenzied masses delightfully continued their mud battles, causing significant destruction to the expensive lawn. Before exiting the stage, Blythe led the crowd in chanting “Now is the time for me to rise to my feet,” an homage to Connecticut natives Hatebreed, generating enormous cheering. But as soon as Lamb of God exited the stage, a Mayhem representative immediately took the microphone and begged the fans to stop. Still, it was only once he announced the threat of the venue refusing to host all future Mayhem shows that the showers of sod began to subside, and playing to the crowd’s rowdy nature, led fans in the seats in chants of “stop throwing that sh*t!”
With much of the lawn now gaping, muddied holes anyhow, fans quickly quieted down, and began what would turn out to be a lengthy wait for Rob Zombie to take the stage. The day’s searing heat had finally given way to a cool evening breeze, and darkness fell as stagehands set up Zombie’s complex set.
The curtain fell away promptly at 8:30, revealing numerous video screens, robots, and all forms of amnitronic features. Rob Zombie stepped out of a giant robot in the center of the stage, waving a spiky, evil hand, flanked by his skull-mask wearing band. The spooky stage design also meshed perfectly with the full moon hanging prominently in the sky above the open lawn. The night’s setlist would focus heavily on older material, opening with What Lurks on Channel X? and Superbeast from his first solo record. Watch my video of Superbeast below:
Zombie’s set would prove strikingly different from much of the day’s other acts, as he prioritized showmanship over musical purity. Various horror and anime video clips played on the giant video screens as the dreadlocked, pentagram-adorned musician posed, raged, and ran about the stage, and searing blasts of pyrotechnic fireballs lit up the night on almost every song. Zombie was noticeably out of breath at times, missing the occasional lyric or having the audience sing it for him. Nonetheless, fans enthusiastically responded to favorite songs like Living Dead Girl, More Human than Human, and new song Sick Bubble-Gum, during which balloons rained over the audience.
The frontman, who last played New York back in December, frequently engaged the crowd with his trademark mocking humor. A giant robot stalked the stage for another new song, Mars Needs Women, and showers of some sort of feathery confetti were blown over the seats and pit during a surprise cover of part of Alice Cooper’s School’s Out, sticking to the dripping, sweaty pit-dwellers as if they’d been tarred and feathered.
Zombie ended the night by sauntering up and through the crowd with a giant spotlight as guitarist John 5, whose recent solo album demonstrates his immense talent, shredded through an almost five minute solo, encompassing plenty of double-tapping, whammy diving, parts of Eddie Van Halen’s famous Eruption, and even the American anthem. Yet once Zombie returned to the stage, he claimed John 5 had lost a bet made on the radio earlier that day on whether the Hartford crowd would be the best yet, and forced the guitarist to smash his allegedly $10,000 guitar on the stage, much to the delight of the crowd. Wrapping up his set with White Zombie hit Thunderkiss ’65 and fan-favorite Dragula, Rob Zombie easily proved to be the night’s most visually impressive spectacle, even without the purist metal viciousness possessed by most other bands on the bill.
By the time Korn took the stage at 10pm, fans from the front pit to the lawn in the very back were beginning to feel the toll of the long day. The bring-it-on energy that had embodied the second stage pits and earlier main stage acts was wearing thin, and the sore, sunburnt hordes of Connecticut metalheads relished the cool breezes the night air finally delivered.
However, Korn were chosen as the tour headliners with good reason, and the band easily proved it last night. Playing against a Broadway-worthy stage set of 30-foot tall oil rigs and moving drills, seemingly related to new single Oildale (and perhaps their boycott of BP), the California band chose a setlist ripe with new hits and old favorites. They opened with the almost-forgotten Right Now, a simple but aggressive track that had the pit up and roiling, followed by old classic Twist.
FrontmanJonathon Davis is a compelling singer, generally skipping on stage banter and putting all of his contorted angst into his voice, face, and general stage presence instead. Bassist Fieldy (watch my interview with Fieldy from Korn’s May New York show here) danced about the stage as he slapped his instrument, driving Korn’s signature low-end sound and smiling at the crowd while guitarist Munky crunched through riffs wearing a white, Phantom of the Opera-type mask. All the while, blasts of flaming pyro shot out from the industrial machinery props filling the stage, as if the band had been transplanted into the end of some kind of Michael Bay film.
It’s easy to forget just how long Korn has been around until experiencing their live show, featuring song after song that’s been drilled into everyone’s head by endless radio and MTV play. Munky grabbed a bullhorn to sing backing vocals for Somebody Someone, and the entire venue sang along on Falling Away From Me. The audience politely applauded new song Let the Guilt Go, but it wasn’t until an intense drum solo led into Freak on a Leash that the band’s truly best material began showing up.
Sadly, fans were exiting the venue in significant amounts throughout Korn’s set, likely exhausted by the hours upon hours of metal brutality in the heat. Blind, one of Korn’s best songs, especially in a live setting, got only a semblance of the crowd response the roaring “Are you ready?” lyric typically brings out, and the moshing seemed half-hearted on the song’s distinctive main riff.
Yet the audience managed to catch a second wind soon after, wildly cheering as Davis appeared on stage with his trademark bagpipes for the nursery school rhyme-inspired Shoots & Ladders, and the entire venue went absolutely nuts as they segued into a cover of Metallica’s One, virtually every fan in attendance screaming along to the famous “Darkness! Imprisoning me!” lyrics. Early hit Clown also got an intense response, at least in the front pit, and the band wrapped up the 2010 Mayhem Festival with their original MTV hit Got the Life.
As fans filed out of the Comcast Theater, some limping and staggering, others still bouncing from all the free energy drinks distributed throughout the day, an immense sense of satisfaction was evident in the crowd. While New York, and even smaller cities such as Hartford, regularly host acts such as Korn, Rob Zombie, and many of the second stage bands, the sheer scope and intensity of the Mayhem Festival is in a league of its own.
From the unmatchable line up of A, B, and C-list bands to side attractions such as motocross stunts and rapping Oompa Loompas (exactly what it sounds like) and the overall heavy metal festival atmosphere, the tour has firmly filled the gap left by the demise of Ozzfest. Corporate sponsorships from Rockstar and Jagermeister kept tickets relatively cheap and offered a plethora of free activities and products, and in the end, Mayhem Festival 2010 delivered exactly what it promised (much to the chagrin of the Comcast security and groundskeeping staff): pure, unadulterated heavy metal mayhem.
Saturday’s Mayhem show is also only the beginning for New Yorkers. Mayhem makes its second New Jersey appearance at the PNC Arts Center this coming Wednesday, and with Ozzfest making its watered-down in August, and yet another Rockstar-sponsored festival hitting the PNC Arts Center after that, it truly is a great summer to be a metalhead.
Comments