Rock on the Range 2015: Day 1
Friday 5/15/2015
Mapfre Stadium – Columbus, OH
It’s fascinating to me how I came about to review Rock on the Range 2015 on this site. Seven years ago, I was 23 years old, just out of college, and had all the free time in the world. I was single, with no kids, and lived in an apartment. It was also the first year that a friend of mine happened to stumble onto some info about an up and coming festival called Rock on the Range. I’ve been in love ever since. This past weekend, for the seventh consecutive year, a group of my crazy, music-obsessed friends from all over the midwest (nine of us this year) piled into a rental van and headed to Columbus to catch the 2015 version of the mighty Rock on the Range. We were equipped with every tailgating accessory you can possibly imagine (planned to the minute detail), and a perfect concert weather forecast: clouds and a little tiny bit of rain.
As the festival has grown each year, so has my blogging effort. This year, like last, I will do three separate blogs on the three separate days of this festival. First up – a Friday lineup packed with great bands, and headlined by my favorite band, Slipknot. I was juiced when we got to Columbus, and even though some of us had driven all night to get there by 10am, I couldn’t get into the venue fast enough.
My only hope: that this year would simply live up to previous year’s incredible experiences. That’s no easy feat my friends. ROTR 2015 – I’ve been looking forward to you for exactly 362 days. Let’s do this.
Shaman’s Harvest
I’ve been desperately trying to catch Shaman’s Harvest live since the first time I saw them – an early set in 2010 at Rock on the Range. They blew me away immediately in 2010, with their southern rock and kickass friendly attitude. I love their sound, and know the guys in the band to be genuine, laid back dudes who love their jobs and their fans. I am a HUGE Shaman’s Harvest fan, and because they were the first band to play for the weekend, I was all over my group to get to the venue on time to catch this show. They did not disappoint. The soulful southern singing and thick guitar riffs came in a big way, and their show was every bit as fun as I remembered. Their set was short featuring four tracks off of their latest CD (Dangerous, Blood in the Water, Dirty Diana, and Country as F***), and then they closed, of course, with the mighty Dragonfly, which is still one of my favorite songs. Tons of energy, a carefree but great performance by singer Nathan Hunt, and a TON of pent up energy by fans who drove from all over made this a show to remember. If you’ve never heard of this band, then let me introduce you to the bandwagon. Hop on. A great way to start the weekend.
Islander
Islander peaked my interest with the release of their Violence & Destruction album in 2014. They bring an interesting fusion of rap metal and post-hardcore that feels part Rage Against the Machine, part Limp Bizkit, and part Glassjaw. However, even though I enjoyed the album, I was on the fence with this band – they were bold in their attempt to enter a music space that few have succeeded, and if they couldn’t pull it off live, they wouldn’t last. Unfortunately, this ROTR performance did not sit well with me. Islander brought a ton of energy, but along with that was a touch of sloppiness in their rhythm that lead to slightly misplaced vocals and a loose sound. The songs weren’t bad, they just didn’t feel polished, and I felt like this was one of the weaker performances of the weekend. I did enjoy hearing the song Cold Speak live, and feel like this band has a lot of potential, but Mikey Carvajal and the gang just didn’t pull it all together for me. Here’s to hoping they were just having an off night – you always get two shots with me. Lets hope next time I see them it’s a different story.
Dorothy
In contrast to Islander, Dorothy was the absolute surprise of the weekend. I had never heard of them before ROTR this year, and while I did dig the YouTube video that I checked out on the way to Columbus, I NEVER expected the show I got on Friday. So far as I can tell from research, this is brand new band that landed on the map in 2014 (their six song EP is really fantastic), but you’d never know they were new when watching their show. I had an absolute blast listening to them play songs like No Church in the Wild, and After Midnight. When she wasn’t busy blowing me away with her voice, I was thoroughly impressed with Dorothy Martin’s stage presence and connection with the crowd. She laughed like an old pro, making comments about how she left Romania because nobody would drink with her. The band was solid, energetic, and put out a fantastic sound, even on the Jager stage where it can be difficult to sound polished. Last year Rolling Stone named Dorothy as a band to know, and I couldn’t agree more. Great band, great set. Looking forward to their future.
Beartooth
Another total unknown for me going into ROTR, I later found out that Beartooth was started by Caleb Shomo, the previous lead singer of Attack Attack. I walked into this show with a bit of excitement – this would be the first chance to see a solid metalcore band at ROTR, and the weekend overall had less bands in that genre than years past. I was immediately blown away with the number of fans they had. They closed the show with In Between, which is their single right now, and it was an incredibly fun song. I appreciated that particular song because it features Shomo’s clean vocals quite a bit, and gave me a good opportunity to asses both of his singing styles live. The vocals were excellent, and I was also really impressed with the guitarists for this band – young guys that sounded really great. This band didn’t blow the roof off, but for a relatively young band, they had a great sound. Extremely high ceiling here – I hope this group meshes and sticks around for a while.
Breaking Benjamin
Holy cow. Breaking Benjamin had been on my bucket list for a really, really long time. For some reason, I never caught them when I was younger, and then their hiatus prevented me from seeing them for the past 5+ years. I have been a Breaking Benjamin fan for so long, and was so amped for this show – I even left Beartooth a few minutes early to make it over there in time to get up front. I WILDLY underestimated how many people were feeling the exact same way. In front of the biggest day-crowd I’ve seen in my 7 years at ROTR (see the pic above), Breaking Benjamin absolutely crushed this set. Whatever Ben Burnely’s illness was, it is long in the rear view mirror, as he absolutely crushed every single element of this set. His vocals were fantastic, he had absolutely no problems engaging the entire (HUGE) crowd, and the energy pouring out of him indicated hat he was so thrilled to be back on the stage. Equally impressive to Burnley’s vocals were the band behind him – an entire new cast now supports Burnley after some nasty legal battles with his old bandmates, but they sounded near flawless on all of the old Breaking Benjamin material. This set took me back 10 years, to my high school years singing Polyamorous at the top of my lungs. It was an absolute blast, and really a dream come true for me to be able to see this band – I never thought it would happen. There is a TON more I’d like to write here, but I’m going to save it, because I was lucky enough to see an encore performance three days four days later in Indianapolis. That will be a separate blog out soon. Cliffs Notes: That show was also amazing.
Marilyn Manson
I am not a Manson fan, but when he played in front of Rob Zombie at ROTR 2012, I thought his show was great. The theatrics were intense, the songs sounded great, and even though he’s getting old, he really brought energy for his show 3 years ago. Because of that, I was somewhat excited for the show this year – I mean who doesn’t love The Beautiful People? However, my hopes proved to be much too high. Manson was sluggish, behind the beat, and occasionally off-tune as he hacked together a roller-coaster show. There were high points – mOBSCENE is a fun live song, and I enjoyed hearing The Dope Show, but he completely mailed in The Beautiful People, and there were other songs that he glossed over as well. The theatrics and energy of 35,000 people were great, but enough to overcome an overwhelmingly lackadasical all-around performance by Manson. I don’t expect perfection, especially from someone approaching 50, but you at least have to care, and I’m not convinced that Manson did here.
Slipknot
The mighty Slipknot took over after a long, fantastic day of live music. By that time, we had pushed our way all the way up near the front, with only about 20 people between us and the stage. We were hot, sweaty, and exhausted- but oh-so-incredibly amped for this show. To the screams of 35,000, Slipknot walked out to a dark stage with XIX playing in the background (it was actually really cool intro – you could feel the pulse building as the instrumental picked up pace). When the first lights hit, the drummer transitioned into Sarcatastrophe (a monster track off their last album), and then they dug deep and hit us with The Heretic Anthem, which is one of my favorites. This is really the last point at which I remember thinking much. By the end of the second song, I had been completely consumed with the energy of the show. Slipknot has such an incredible ability to make you feel part of the show – and once again I was just absolutely floored by the spectacle of it all. It was an hour and a half of chills, as we wove through Before I Forget, Wait and Bleed, Psychosocial, AOV, Duality, Spit it Out, and their new killer single, The Devil in I. My crew made it about three quarters of the way through the show in the front before I hopped the fence and headed to a spot where I could just observe. It wasn’t that I was tired, I wanted to witness the show in it’s full glory, which can be hard when you’re as close as we were and bodies are flying everywhere. I got to my second spot just as Spit it Out started, which turned out to be perfect. They did the classic Spit It Out ending, which may come off as repetitive to some, but is something I look forward to every time. I can still hear it echoing in my head. “Not until say…jumpda****up. Not until I say…jumpda****up….”
Seeing as how this is usually their encore, I wasn’t sure where they would take the last few songs. However, I was pleasantly blown away when they came back, and played (sic). Such a great song, that I always forget about. Finally, to close the show, Corey Taylor walked up and said “Are you guys ready for your National Anthem?” The epic, high pitch guitar drags started, and it hit me, and everyone else all at once. They hadn’t played Surfacing yet. The place went absolutely nuts. What an epic ending to an epic show.
I’ve seen Slipknot so many times – and somehow, this show just seemed even more impressive. More pyro. More hydraulic sets (they are up to four band members now who operate on a hydraulically lifted portion of the set) More energy. More fans. More moshing. More incredible memories created by one of the best live acts in the history of live music. Off hand, I can’t think of a better Slipknot performance, but at this point, it’s more practical to speak to their consistent excellence than to talk about where this ranks among their other shows. Just another run of the mill awesome performance by Slipknot – one that I’m thankful I was a part of.
So that ended one hell of a first day of ROTR 2015. Thanks to Google Photos for doing the killer gif above. Yes, those are my pictures! After the show, it was of course time for some Gyros, and then off to get as much sleep as possible before resetting and redoing the exact same thing for the next two days. Thank you sir, may I have another.
Cheers!! Check out my post on Day 2 or my post on Day 3, to review other great content from Rock on the Range 2015. Also, don’t forget to add The Music Pill’s social media accounts to stay in touch!
“I am a world before I am a man, I was a creature before I could stand, I will remember before I forget, BEFORE I FORGET THAT!”