Rockstar Mayhem Festival 2013
Klipsch Music Center – Indianapolis, IN
7/26/2013
As usual, the Mayhem tour was packed full of great bands. Young metal, prog metal, old school metal, Rob Zombie metal (?), and everything in between was slated to be a part of this show. Thanks to some freakishly cool weather, it was a partly cloudy, 75 degree day in the middle of July – a perfect setting for me to muster up some of my energy and rock out for the day!
Mayhem – lets do this!
Unfortunately, due to my old-ballsness, I can no longer run from stage to stage seeing bands for 12 straight hours without restroom, water, sit down, and stretching breaks (yes…stretching breaks)…SO, I had to pick and choose a bit here. So, I missed a couple of great bands…but still caught a host of great ones. Here’s a quick word on each band I saw, along with a picture from the trusty Droid 4. Cheers!
Motionless in White
By no means am I a MiW fan….but, they are the “new rage” in what little metal media there is, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to check them out for myself and give them a fair chance (read: dismiss them once and for all). Overall, I have to admit that I thought their set was much better than I expected it would be. I’m certainly not buying MiW shirts or anything, but I went in with no expectations at all and thought the show was pretty decent. My biggest issue was that the best song they played, AMERICA, was a completely different genre from the rest of their show, and just didn’t fit. I think this band has some potential, but they have a ways to go, and they need to pick an identity to get there. Manson or Metal?
Born of Osiris
I was really looking forward to seeing this band – I loved their release in 2011, and while they are a stretch for me musically, I like bands that push me a bit. Their progressive style for some reason doesn’t lose me, and I just really dig their sound. Their show at Mayhem was really really good – they walked out to a relatively rowdy crowd that went nuts when they opened with “FOLLOW THE SIGGNNN”. I’ll definitely take that memory with me. I really only have good things to say, the keyboardist/back up vocalist was fun to watch and he was great at both crafts, and I walked away really excited for their upcoming album. One minor negative – I wish the keyboard would have been a bit louder – its such a huge part of their song construction, and often times carries the melody, and it was a bit tough to hear on the small side stage.
Machine Head
I didn’t know much about Machine Head before this show. Holy cow. I mean, WOAH. Machine Head absolutely killed this show. I stood there like a deer in the headlights the whole time, wondering what the hell I had been listening to for the past 10 years and why Machine Head wasn’t a major part of it. They completely blew me away. Most of the show was brutally hard and fast paced, and it was quite evident that this band was a veteran group. The end of the show, and by far the highlight for me, was the song Locust, off of their latest album. The song slows things down a bit and really features how talented the band is, while still leaving room for fast paced solos. It’s an epic 6+ minute song with tons of character and several changes in pace and feel. Excellent end to a great, great show by Machine Head. I also later found out that the lead singer blogs often to his fans, and loves to make fun of himself and is generally loved by everyone in the Metal community. Props fellas. You have a new huge fan.
Amon Amarth
Amon Amarth is one of those bands that everyone should see once. They are a melodic death metal band from Sweden that plays music about Vikings (but does NOT play Viking Metal…a sore subject among the band members). The lead singer’s voice is amazingly gutteral and death metal-ish, and to be honest, it scares me a bit, and their songs have really cool lyrics about mythology. The show they put on was really great, and while the particular style of the music isn’t my cup of tea (I just cant get on board with death metal vocals…), I did enjoy this show quite a bit. Deceiver of the Gods was an awesome song live. I wouldn’t buy an album, but I’d definitely go to another show. Eye opening set for sure.
Mastodon
I like Mastodon’s set every time I see them, but this set was the best I’ve ever seen them play. They somehow found a way to bring some new energy to the stage without losing their stoic, “we stand and play because we are badass” vibe. It was really really awesome to watch, and they sounded amazing as usual. Their song selection was a bit unusual for me, no Curl of the Burl, and no Colony of Birchmen, which was disappointing to me, but the set was still great and I got to hear a couple songs I’d never heard before live. Always a pleasure, Mastodon. Always a pleasure.
5FDP
I really like 5FDP’s songs. The Bleeding is one of my all time favorites. I also think they put on a great show, and the show at Mayhem was no different. The songs sounded great. The performance was great. The problem is, when I say it was no different, I literally mean there wasn’t a single element of this show, other than two new songs, that was different than every other show I’ve seen them do. The jokes were the same. The crowd gimmicks were the same. It was so identical that I was “calling” what was going to happen next. “Here’s the part where he pulls all the kids on stage and plays “Ivan Says” and then calls their parents shitty.” “Here’s the part where he makes an emotional comment about the troops and shows that he wears someone’s dog tags and then they play Bad Company”. If this was your first 5FDP show, you probably would have thought it was amazing. But they’ve been around too long now, and everyone has seen their show, and they desperately, DESPERATELY, need a revamp. However, they did just come out with a new CD that is really really good, and so I’m SURE that their next tour will be different. (I’ve never said that before…..)
Rob Zombie
If anyone could give 5FDP a lesson on how to play the same songs for a decade while maintaining an ever-evolving show, it’s Rob Zombie. Every single time I see a Rob Zombie show it blows my mind. He has the biggest, most innovative and most visually impressive show around. I’ve blogged about Zombie several other times, so I’ll spare going into it again, but if you haven’t seen a Zombie show and you like his music at all, do yourself a favor. It’s incredible. This show was without a doubt one of the craziest and wildest shows I’ve ever seen. The picture above gives you the tiniest glimpse of how visually stimulating it was. Its a complete sensory overload. I will admit that he does have a bit of trouble keeping up with the vocals…but he’s approaching 50 and so I think that’s a bit excusable, and it’s masked by how much fun the show is. (I mean, Thunderkiss ’65 came out almost exactly 20 years ago. The guy deserves to be able to skip a word here and there, right?).
Overall Mayhem was great, and I will look forward to this tour again next year. Cheers!
Check out The Music Pill’s Facebook page for lots more pictures of the festival!
“Descending……DOWN. Down, they come, the swarm of locusts. Skys above, converge to choke us. Feasts of souls, consume the harvest. Young and old….suffer unto the locust.”